


The Rest of Forever

by AuroraWest



Series: Terminal/Fallout/Peripeteia/The Rest of Forever [4]
Category: Wreck-It Ralph (Movies)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-01-04 13:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 68,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18344357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraWest/pseuds/AuroraWest
Summary: Nine years after King Candy was exposed as Turbo and Vanellope took her rightful place as president of Sugar Rush, unexpected tragedy strikes Game Central Station in the form of an old enemy. Can Taffyta Muttonfudge save the arcade or is Litwak's doomed? Follows the events of Terminal, Fallout, and Peripeteia.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Wreck-It Ralph and Ralph Breaks the Internet are the property of the Walt Disney Company. All other copyrighted characters are the properties of the respective creators and copyright holders.
> 
> Author's note: Hi friends! You've reached the fourth fanfiction in my Wreck-It Ralph fanfiction cycle, which is to say, have you read Terminal, Fallout, and Peripeteia yet? If you haven't, you're going to want to before continuing. There are also assorted shorter fics that are companion pieces to this series. My profile lists the order the fics should be read in. To everyone else who's hung in with me through the previous three stories, it means the world to me if you're still reading. I'd love to hear from you, but most of all I just hope you enjoy the final fanfiction in this series!
> 
> Special thanks to my wife, windsett, for reading and editing this, helping me through plot impasses, and allowing me to talk incessantly about it.

 

“For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?” —William Shakespeare, _Much Ado About Nothing_

* * *

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Well, a little resentful, to be honest. Like it was an excuse to not get close to me, and like I couldn’t handle the truth. It’s fine if she just isn’t attracted to me, but throwing the bad guy thing in my face? It’s just—I didn’t think it showed a lot of class.”

“Some people will never be able to see past the fact that you’re a bad guy. We all have to work to accept that. As much as we want people to change, some of them won’t. And that’s okay.”

“Yeah, Sorceress, I mean you have to look on the bright side—”

Clyde cleared his throat.

“Oh right, sorry. I’m Ralph, I’m a bad guy—”

A practiced chorus of ‘hellos’ came from the characters ringed around the room, most of them smiling like they found comfort in the ritual. Sorceress waved and smiled. “Hi, Ralph.”

Wreck-It Ralph shifted in his chair, which creaked in protest. “Anyway, like I was saying, you have to look on the bright side. Sure, a lot of people can’t get past the whole bad guy thing, but there’s a lot more people now that don’t care. Nobody screams when I walk through Game Central Station anymore!”

“But that’s _you_ , Ralph,” Sorceress sighed.

“So?”

She threw her hands up and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, and she was saved from answering as a voice said, “Zombie, bad guy!”

“Hi, Zombie.”

“Ralph save arcade! Ralph different from rest of us!”

“Oh come on,” Ralph mumbled. “Not this again.”

“It’s true,” Sorceress said. “Things got better for all of us because of _you_.”

Ralph rolled his eyes as his ears slowly turned red and Clyde serenely said, “You shouldn’t underestimate the value of your own actions, Ralph. What you did nine years ago in _Sugar Rush_ showed a lot of people what all of us know already, that a bad guy is more than his programming.”

“If all of them know it,” came a mutter, “why do they need to have these meetingsth every week?”

Taffyta Muttonfudge glanced at the person sitting next to her, who was the whole the reason she was at the weekly Bad Anon meeting. Obviously _she_ never would have called herself a bad guy and come here on her own. She tried to look stern instead of smirking, because it was totally true. This whole Bad Anon thing was a lot more lovey-dovey than she’d expected it to be. At least no one had hugged yet, though between Bowser’s spikes and Zombie’s rotting flesh, that might have been more an issue of practicality.

Unfortunately, hers weren’t the only eyes that turned. Everyone else’s in the room did too. Which honestly, was maybe what he’d been hoping for. Certainly it wouldn’t have surprised him. There was a silence. And then, “Do you have something you’d like to share?” Clyde asked.

King Candy raised an eyebrow and bounced his foot, so the gumdrop bell on it jingled. “Do I detect some hostility in that tone, Clyde? Not very welcoming of you.”

“I think you’re supposed to say your name first,” Taffyta muttered to him, meeting his eyes and knowing that he’d catch the conspiratorial look there.

“Oh right,” he said breezily. “Who would you rather I be today, King Candy or Turbo?” Silence. “Tough crowd I guessth—well anyway, I’m King Candy and I’m _technically_ a good guy—”

There was a mutter from around the room and Taffyta whispered, “You might want to try a _little_ harder.”

He winked at her and went on, “Okay, okay, I’m King Candy and if you insist, I’m a bad guy, and to be _perfectly_ honest with all of you I’m feeling less of the warm Bad Anon welcome than I’d been led to believe I’d get when I agreed to come here.”

“Turbo not bad guy,” Zombie said. “Turbo just jerk.”

“See, this is why I asked if you want me to be Turbo or King Candy today,” he sighed. He glitched red for a second to his Turbo form. When no one reacted, he immediately glitched back, adjusting his crown as it shifted on his head.

Clyde didn’t look amused. Clyde actually didn’t really look anything—it made him a pretty good leader for a group like this, Taffyta had to admit. Not to mention someone she wouldn’t want to play poker against. But the one-pixel-wide line of his mouth seemed to thin. “Why don’t _you_ tell us why you’re here,” Clyde said. “And what you expect to gain from attending our meetings.”

There was a heavy silence in the room, though Taffyta was pretty sure she could hear the faint dripping of bodily fluids from Zombie. Gross.

It wasn’t exactly a mystery that King Candy _wasn’t_ welcome here. And he was right that he technically _wasn’t_ a bad guy, but there wasn’t a group for good-guys-turned-bad. And while there _could_ be a group for characters that had gone Turbo, the three of them that remained at Litwak’s Family Fun Center were currently sitting in the room together, so there didn’t seem to be much point in that, either.

Anyway there wasn’t much to talk about there—the outcome was always the same when you went Turbo, you put your game in danger of being unplugged. Of course, if you _were_ Turbo, you actually did get your game unplugged. It still amazed Taffyta that King Candy bore that burden as well as he did, considering _some_ people she knew who’d gone Turbo— _cough_ , Vanellope, _cough_ —refused to admit they’d even done it, and had _still_ never apologized for any of the problems they’d caused.

Not that he’d apologized either, not in so many words. But he’d saved _Sugar Rush_ from a virus and he’d tamed his demons by not going into the code vault and altering _Sugar Rush’s_ code when he’d had the opportunity after the game had reset. The problem was that he carried the approbation not exactly like a badge of honor, but not exactly uncomfortably, either.

Which was why he was never _really_ going to fit in with the rest of the arcade. And part of the reason he was here tonight.

“Why am I here?” King Candy asked. He glanced at Taffyta. “Personal growth,” he replied, his eyes only flicking away from hers on the last syllable.

Well, at least he hadn’t said ‘because Vanellope told me I had to last time she was here.’ It may have been the truth, but it wouldn’t have played as well. Anyway, while it was true that Vanellope had told him to come—she’d said it was part of his parole and he’d glared at her and asked her if she couldn’t find somewhere on the internet to get run over—Taffyta knew there was another reason. Vanellope had suggested it, and she’d certainly implied that there might be consequences if he didn’t attend. But Taffyta thought he might have held out, called her bluff—though Vanellope was another one that Taffyta wouldn’t want to play poker against. He might have, that is, if Taffyta herself hadn’t said over routine kart maintenance, “Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

Taffyta didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but somewhere along the line, it had become clear that the one person in the world whose opinions were by far the most important to King Candy were hers. Maybe it had been that way for a long time, but it had taken her until the last few months to really see it. Not that she said anything, because it was weird, it was almost like—a gift. Or something. Like, sure he’d gotten two games unplugged and taken over hers and turned _Sugar Rush’s_ rightful ruler into a glitch and, well, all of it, and maybe she shouldn’t have valued the fact that she was his trusted confidante. But the fact was that Taffyta had always felt a draw towards him that she couldn’t explain. And now that _Sugar Rush_ had been upgraded, now that she had the mind and body and emotions of a twenty-five-year-old woman, and not a nine-year-old girl, it was easier to see how precious the trust of someone like King Candy was.

People like King Candy, they didn’t give their trust lightly. To earn that from the man she’d first idolized and who had, over time, become her mentor and then her best friend, well, that was something she wasn’t ever going to take for granted.

And he obviously valued her trust too, because when she’d said attending a Bad Anon meeting wouldn’t be the worst idea, he’d tapped his fingers on the hood of his kart, intently polished the horn for five minutes longer than even he normally would have, and finally asked, “So when do these people meet?”

Bowser snorted a fireball and rolled his eyes. “Personal growth?”

Clyde gave him a warning look. “What kind of personal growth, King Candy?” he asked.

“Personal growth means _personal_ growth,” King Candy said. “Don’t you guysth have some kind of motto about that? The only person who can truly help you is yourself?”

“That’s Chun-Li’s self-care group,” Clyde replied.

Making a face, King Candy said, “Look, I don’t see how it’s really any of your business why I’m here—the same reason the rest of you are, okay? Acceptance or…whatever.”

From the looks on the rest of the bad guys’ faces, it was obvious that all of them found this unconvincing. But the thing was, they _were_ out of line asking him why he was there. Like because he’d done bad things, he could be denied the privacy that the rest of them took for granted. Nobody asked Zangief why he continued to attend when he was so obviously at peace with his role, nobody pried into Bowser’s feelings for Mario. He wasn’t just expected to be reformed, he was expected to be… _more_. Not really better, because no one expected him to be decent, which had to be its own burden. For someone used to being universally loved, being universally reviled with no hope of reprieve couldn’t be easy.

“Hey guys, maybe give him a little bit of a break,” Ralph said. He sounded uncomfortable, and when both Taffyta and King Candy glanced at him in surprise, he _looked_ uncomfortable. But he still went on, “The guy came out here tonight, so, you know, baby steps. Right?”

There were shrugs and mutters of grudging agreement. Nine years—nine _years_ after King Candy had been unmasked as Turbo, after the Cy-bug invasion had almost gotten _Sugar Rush_ unplugged, and most of the arcade had only _inched_ closer to forgiving him. Maybe forgiveness would always be too much to hope for. He’d said it himself, he was looking for acceptance, though Taffyta knew full well he wanted more.

“Our time’s up, everyone,” Clyde said. “Let’s close out with the Bad Anon Pledge.”

Everyone shuffled to their feet except Taffyta and King Candy. And when she looked at him, even he stood, though he didn’t link hands the way everyone else did with the villains on either side of him. Nor did he join in as the group recited, “I am bad, and that’s good. I will never be good, and that’s not bad. There’s no one I’d rather be than me.”

The atmosphere turned jovial as friends walked out together, chatting amongst themselves and grabbing what was left of the meeting’s snacks. King Candy adjusted his shirt cuffs as the room emptied, and Taffyta just waited, a hand on her hip.

Clyde floated over to the snack table. “Will you be joining us again?” he asked, his expression as mild as it always was. _This_ was the kind of character that Bad Anon was made for. Quiet, reserved bad guys like Clyde, who never raised his voice and would never hurt anyone if his job didn’t require him to do it.

King Candy linked his hands behind his back and went to peer at the cookies and coffee that Sorceress had provided. “I don’t think I have much of a choice, do I?” He picked up a suspiciously frosted black cookie and popped it into his mouth, bit down, and made a face. His eyes watered, but he swallowed, took a breath, and then went on, “We both know that I was asked to come to these thingsth.”

Clyde hovered in silence for a moment. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the aphorism that we have to lie in the bed we made for ourselves?”

Raising an eyebrow, King Candy replied, “ _You_ may have to. In case you haven’t noticed, I never have.” He paused. “Though no offense Clyde, but you’re a ghost, so you’re not exactly lying in any kind of bed, are you?” He picked up another cookie, thought better of it, and tossed it in a lukewarm cup of coffee. Then he stalked out the door, though the irritated set of his shoulders was somewhat at odds with the jingling that accompanied every step.

Taffyta glanced at Clyde. “He’ll be back.”

“You’ll both be back.”

With a shrug, she said, “No one said I couldn’t come.”

Clyde bobbed there, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. “Most people see the most progress when they attend regularly,” he said. Clearly it wasn’t what he’d been about to say, but Taffyta didn’t ask about that. The last thing she needed was the opinion of a ghost from _Pac-Man_.

There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so Taffyta left without another word and heard the lights switch off behind her. It bathed the hallway in eerie blue light and she couldn’t help thinking how much it was probably washing her out and making her look dead. These 8-bit games, they didn’t do anything for anyone’s skin.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true, because King Candy didn’t look any worse for wear. King Candy had a tendency to always look good though, no matter his environment. Good in a way that Taffyta couldn’t help noticing pretty much all the time.

His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes were hooded, and when she reached his side, he said, “You know I could go to those meetings for the rest of forever and it wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Where’s your optimism?” Taffyta asked him, arching an eyebrow.

“Must not be on the roster today.” He smiled slightly though, and the two of them continued down the hallway to Pac-Manorail station. By now a train had already come and gone and the platform was empty. Taffyta couldn’t say she minded. It wasn’t so much that the staring bothered her. It was more that…well, people were judging her too, and they had been for a long time. And whereas before she’d just been King Candy’s favorite, now she was as suspect as him. And the more she was seen to…er, obviously care about him, which she did, the more people figured they were up to something together.

She glanced towards the spot where his graffitied sign was still barely visible. People—Surge Protector most likely, though possibly others—had tried to erase it. But just like everything else about him, it was hard to get rid of entirely. “How was the cookie?”

With a scoff, he said, “Don’t even know why I bothered.”

The train arrived at that moment, outdated blue sleekness that screamed bygone era.  _Sugar Rush’s_ train was bubblegum pink with orange and purple lines of frosting running along its cars, and she much preferred its aesthetic, though she guessed if she was being really honest it also was just slightly, possibly, a little too 90s for this day and age. But then again she never took the train. None of the racers ever did—the train was for NPCs, people _without_ karts. Taffyta felt the nascent sneer at the thought, before she caught herself and remembered that that contempt was what had made her bully the president of _Sugar Rush_ for fifteen years.

Hey, she was trying.

They hopped into a car together, but Taffyta got her feet tangled together and fell to the seat heavily and not at all gracefully. At the amused look King Candy shot her, she made a face and said, “Sometimes I think that upgrade made me way clumsier. At least I got used to the whole having a figure thing. For awhile all of it just seemed like it was in the way.”

“Sort of wish the same couldn’t be said for certain… _people_ ,” King Candy said, raising his eyebrows as he sprawled across the seat like he owned it. His physicality wasn’t something she’d ever noticed until _Sugar Rush_ had been upgraded and she’d turned twenty-five overnight. You weren’t supposed to think like that about your best friend, though. It was just hard not to when every time he smiled at her, she got butterflies in her stomach.

She shrugged. “There isn’t really much anyone can do about it.” The catcalls, she meant, and the whistling, though a lot of that had tapered off as people had gotten used to the fact that the _Sugar Rush_ racers had grown up. Now it was mostly just the ogling that got to her.

His eyebrows stayed raised. “They could stop.”

Taffyta snorted. “Oh, yeah, this from the guy who once told Janet from _Virtua Cop_ to lose the body armor because she had a great figure?”

“ _Allegedly_ ,” he said in a tone of great affront.

“‘Allegedly,’ yeah right. You’re the one who told me you said it.”

He muttered something and slung an arm over the side of the car. “Anyway,” he said, clearly trying to move past this turn in the conversation, “the point is, they should stop, and _you_ shouldn’t have to put up with it.”

Tugging her gloves up, Taffyta said, “Uh huh. And who’s gonna make them stop?”

“Maybe me,” he muttered.

This was an alarming thought, but also an oddly nice one. Still, King Candy confronting her…er, admirers sounded like a recipe for disaster. Sometimes she felt like the whole arcade was just waiting for him to pick a fight he couldn’t win. She leaned forward and held his gaze, fixing him with her most serious look. “Please don’t,” she said. “It’s not worth it.”

He drummed his fingers on the side of the car. “And why do you say that?”

“Well, for starters,” she said, “I don’t think it would go the way you wanted it to.”

“ _Moi?_  Oh please, when has _anything_ not gone exactly the way I wanted it to?” he asked, a sardonic gleam in his eyes. But he seemed to have abandoned the idea of defending her honor. Yeah, nice thought, except she didn’t need someone to take care of her and never had—pretty literally, since she’d been programmed to be perpetually nine-years-old until _Sugar Rush_ had been upgraded. Did it make her feel like a piece of meat to be checked out by a bunch of dum-dum guys in the arcade? Obviously. Could she deal with it? Also obviously. She was Taffyta Muttonfudge, after all.

So she just arched an eyebrow in return, and then a voice announced, “Pac-Manorail now arriving at Outlet 7. Welcome to Game Central Station.”

With a screech of brakes, the train pulled up to the platform. Empty, like it usually was. It must have been a lonely game, _Pac-Man_. Just the ghosts and Pac-Man himself. It wasn’t like there was much draw there for anyone to stop by and look around. Just those long, creepy grey corridors and blue light everywhere. And signs, luckily. The permanent ones for GCS and the restrooms, and the ones in Zangief’s surprisingly neat handwriting for the BA meetings, hidden from the gamers, of course, but essential for visitors to the 80s classic. Maybe that was why Bad Anon meetings were held there—you could always count on _Pac-Man_ to be dead after arcade close. Its own characters didn’t even stick around for anything except sleeping, and Clyde, of course, on meeting nights.

And then she wondered if it would have been that way for Turbo, too, if he hadn’t…well, gone Turbo. If _TurboTime_ had survived, if he hadn’t taken over _Sugar Rush_ , would he have been there every night anyway? And how long would he have been able to tolerate that? Aside from the ever-looming possibility of permanent game over, how long would he _really_ have been content with returning every morning to his own much less challenging game?

It was the sort of thought that made her wonder if stuff didn’t happen for a reason. Like, maybe Turbo _had_ to take over _Sugar Rush_. Not necessarily in the way he did, and when he did, but maybe it was just…inevitable. Because of the way he was, because of the way the arcade was. Because some things were just—bound to happen, regardless of programming, regardless of anything.

She was sure King Candy wouldn’t agree, but that wasn’t why she hadn’t ever floated this idea to him. It was more because of this nebulous feeling that he was sort of like…the character in the arcade that drove this process. At least for them. Like maybe every arcade had someone like him, a loose cannon who bent events to his will. People who rejected the status quo, when they lived in a world where life was dependent on maintaining it day in and day out. Ralph was another one, but the way Taffyta saw it, these people’s influence was like a wave, washing in and crashing over a beach, then sucking whatever was caught in its undertow back out to sea. You either got out of the undertow or you didn’t. If you did, great—Taffyta was pretty sure she was outside Ralph’s sphere of influence now, though maybe everyone wasn’t. But King Candy? Something told her that there was more, and it didn’t feel right to bring it up with him until she knew what that _more_ was.

Before the train had entirely stopped, King Candy was on his feet and bouncing out onto the platform, where he offered her a debonair hand. If it had been anyone else she would have scorned it—seriously, she could get out of a train—but since it wasn’t anyone else, since it was _him_ , she took his hand and allowed him to help her out. “Don’t want you to fall on the tracksth, do we now?” he asked.

“I didn’t see you laughing at my coordination when I smoked you on the track about twenty times today,” she said, sugar laced with arsenic and a smile to match.

He squeezed her hand before dropping it, the most careless gesture in the world, and chuckled. Her heart did something that didn’t feel healthy, something between a skip and a hard contraction. “Nothing could take away your coordination on the track,” he said.

It was as impossible as always to keep the smug smile off her face when he said things like this to her. Because she was, and had always been, the _only_ one he’d ever said things like that to. Sure, he might admit that Candlehead and Rancis were good, he might concede that he liked Crumbelina’s style, but he would never, _ever_ let them get away with implying that they were superior to him, let alone respond with something that implied his agreement with that blasphemous suggestion.

Flipping her hair, she said, “Well, you know, I learned from the best.”

“Oh, I do know,” he said, shooting her a grin.

“Geez, you’ve almost got me tricked into thinking you might be a nice guy,” a voice suddenly said. Ralph was standing at the bottom of the escalators, munching on a cherry. When both of them turned to look at him, he took another bite of the fruit and said around a mouthful of it, “Too bad I know you so well.”

“Is that too bad you know me better than that or too bad you’re so well acquainted with me?” King Candy asked.

“Both, Your Royal Puffy-Pants. Look, I’m all for you coming to these meetings but I also don’t have all night to stand around babysitting you.”

Leaning against the railing at the top of the stairs, King Candy raised an eyebrow and said, “Two babysittersth, huh? You’d almost think I did something _really_ awful.”

“Muttonchops ain’t your babysitter,” Ralph said.

“Yeah?” she asked. “What does that make me, then?”

Ralph’s eyes flicked between the two of them. He finished off the cherry, dumped the pit in the garbage, and then said, “A tiny little bit more trustworthy, but not much.”

She grinned, knowing he didn’t mean it. “So that must be why you okayed me going in the code vault to fix that glitchy patch on Sweet Ride the other day, huh?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Ralph said, “Uh huh, and don’t make me regret it. Hey, did you get it fixed?”

Making a face, she said, “Ugh, _almost_. I thought it was okay but you can still _kind_ of see it if you know it’s there when you’re driving by. Not that the gamers can see it, but it’s bugging me.”

King Candy shot her a proud grin and Ralph smiled, too. “You’ll figure it out, kid. You’re not working on that tonight, though, right?”

Taffyta stifled a sigh. She’d been trying to forget what was happening tonight, but she also didn’t want Ralph to be able to tell. They’d become friends over the past nine years, maybe even pretty good friends? The last thing she wanted to do was bring his mood down on a night that he’d been waiting for for months. “Right,” she said, smiling brightly, hoping he didn’t notice how forced it was.

King Candy rolled his eyes and groaned. “Can’t you just forget about that?” Whatever her reservations about letting Ralph realize how much she was dreading the next couple hours, he clearly didn’t share them.

Ralph looked unbothered. “Get real. And anyway, just think about all the points you’re getting tonight. You actually showed up to Bad Anon, and I know Vanellope’s going to be _really_ touched that you’re rolling out the red carpet for her.”

At that, Taffyta couldn’t really help giggling, between the smirk on Ralph’s face and look of long-suffering resignation on King Candy’s. He shot a disgruntled look at her and said, “Purely an accident of timing, believe me. If I had my way, _I’d_ be on vacation right now, that way I could avoid seeing her entirely.”

“Hey, watch it,” Ralph said, a note of warning in his voice. “That’s my best friend you’re talking about.”

“As if we could forget,” King Candy said, raising an eyebrow. “Anyway, I don’t see why she’d even _want_ me there when she showsth up. You know, last time she dropped by for one of these little visits, she said the greatest gift I could give her was to not be here the next time she came back.”

Ralph rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and I know you have a thick enough skin to handle it. You’re not there because she’s excited to see you, you’re there because I gotta show her I’m doing a good job taking care of _Sugar Rush_.”

“And because she couldn’t get away from _Slaughter Race_ until right about now, which would have made it pretty hard for you to _not_ be with us,” Taffyta said. “And Ralph has a point, we _are_ gonna be late if we don’t hurry up.”

“Yeah, so move your molasses, Your Candyness,” Ralph said. “I know what a big supporter of President von Schweetz you are?”

Though King Candy made a face, he took a step onto the escalator and let it carry him to the bottom, where he jumped off with a skip. “Didn’t she give up her title when she, you know, went Turbo?”

“She didn’t go Turbo,” Ralph said heatedly.

King Candy snorted derisively and Taffyta rolled her eyes. She’d heard this argument so many times that she could probably do a dramatic reenactment, with the roles of both Ralph and King Candy being played by her. “What exactly do you want to call it then?” King Candy said. “She abandoned her game, took off for a new one, _and_ , she didn’t bother to tell any of us.”

“Yeah, I’m sure your good-bye would have been real heartfelt.”

“Parting’s _such_ sweet sorrow, Ralph,” King Candy said, waving a hand. “The point isn’t whether or not _I_ personally was broken up about it—spoiler alert, I wasn’t—the point is what she did is _literally_ the definition of going Turbo. I should know, don’t you think?” He glitched briefly to his other form, red binary resolving to show his yellow eyes hooded and a smug smile on his face, before glitching back.

Ralph crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, well, how about you get it through that thick bon-bon head of yours that you’re never going to convince me—”

“Of factsth,” King Candy interjected.

“So maybe do me a favor and stop harping on it.”

When King Candy opened his mouth to clearly _not_ stop harping on it, Taffyta held up her hands and said, “Hey, guys? Vanellope? She’s gonna be here any minute?”

Annoyance instantly forgotten, Ralph said, as though it has been his idea, “Yeah, so let’s get going, you two.” He turned to head out of the outlet into Game Central Station, shooting a look over his shoulder at them to make sure they were following.

As soon as he wasn’t watching, King Candy twisted his face into a grimace, but, dragging his feet, he set off after Ralph. Once they were in Game Central Station, Taffyta started craning her neck, looking for Vanellope. It had been a whole five months since they’d seen her last and everyone in _Sugar Rush_ —not to mention _Fix-It Felix Jr._ and _Hero’s Duty_ —was excited for her arrival. A third of the present company excluded, of course.

And, well—maybe Taffyta wasn’t quite as excited as she should have been. She kept telling herself she couldn’t wait to see Vanellope, but then she’d actually _think_ about what it was going to be like to say hi to her and to talk to her as though nothing had changed, when obviously _everything_ had changed. Sure, it had been almost three years since Vanellope had gone to live in _Slaughter Race_ , but Taffyta’s resentment had only festered and grown in that time. The thing to do would have been to talk to Vanellope about it three years ago. But of course, she hadn’t, and to say something now would just look like sour grape candy.

Suddenly, Ralph began waving exuberantly, and there was a happy shout of, “Stinkbrain!”

A glitchy blue blur shot from the Wi-Fi outlet towards them and hit Ralph in an explosion of binary, resolving itself into a jumble of green and black as Vanellope and Ralph hugged.

Taffyta and King Candy just stood back, watching in silence. He glanced at her, eyelids lowered, eyebrows raised, and mouth pursed in disinterest, and Taffyta stifled a sigh. “Here goes,” she murmured to him, before plastering a smile on her face and turning back to Ralph and Vanellope.


	2. Chapter 2

“And Shank and the crew say hi, Yesss says you owe her another viral video, oh and I _finally_ can kind of understand Merida, get this, she wants to try a piece of your burnt pie! I don’t know, Ralphie, I think she might have kind of a thing for you—” Vanellope was talking a mile a minute as her and Ralph hugged, and when she finally hopped back down to the ground, the grin on her face was so huge that her cheeks looked like they could barely contain it. “Man, it’s great to be back at old Litwak’s, I miss this place!” 

She poked her head around Ralph’s huge frame. “Hey, Taffyta! Long time no see!” With another glitch, she appeared in front of Taffyta, fist raised.

Taffyta dutifully bumped her fist against Vanellope’s and said, “Hey, Pres. How’s the internet?”

“Eh, can’t complain.” Vanellope stuck her hands in her hoodie pockets and rocked back on her heels. “You ever going to visit _Slaughter Race?_ ”

“Er.” Taffyta glanced at King Candy, whose expression hadn’t changed. “Yeah, sure. Definitely someday.”

Rolling her eyes, Vanellope said, “‘Definitely someday’ is sort of starting to sound like ‘not if I don’t have to.’”

Taffyta made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a helpless gurgle. It was the same every time they saw each other. Vanellope said ‘come visit,’ Taffyta gave a noncommittal response, nothing ever came of it. Rinse, repeat. It was hard to want to go to _Slaughter Race_ when she was confronted with the New Vanellope, anyway. She’d been aged up, just like the rest of the _Sugar Rush_ racers—when she’d come back the first time after the upgrade, it had taken effect on her too.

Not that that was the problem. It was hard to say if it was her eyebrow piercing or the tattoo on her left hand that disappeared under her sleeve and clearly went up her entire arm, if the tiny bit of ink in the same design visible on her neck was any indication. Or maybe the way her tights were all shredded? The safety pins instead of licorice holding her hoodie pocket in place? The patches of metal studs on the elbows of her hoodie? The combat boots? The fact that the candy in her hair was interspersed with skulls now and her bangs were cut short and uneven?

It was a change, was the point, and Taffyta wasn’t sure it was exactly her scene. Luckily, King Candy saved her from having to come up with a response to this by saying, “Aw, glitch, I’m _hurt_. Aren’t I invited?” She wondered if he’d done it intentionally to spare her the awkwardness of responding, and when she caught his eye, he gave her a tiny wink. 

Putting her hands on her hips, Vanellope looked at him and said, “Uh, good one, Turbutt. I see your so-called ‘sense of humor’ is as unfunny as ever.”

“Coming from someone whose idea of a good joke is a fart noise and a homophone for bodily waste, I consider that a compliment,” he said coolly.

Vanellope rolled her eyes. “Just like old times. Hey Stinkbrain, he’s not giving you any trouble, is he?”

Ralph gave King Candy a considering look, but at Taffyta’s huffy noise, he waved a hand and said, “Ah, you know. No more than usual.”

This didn’t seem to be particularly convincing to Vanellope, but she dropped it and said, “So, what are we doing tonight? Man, you know what I could _really_ go for?”

“I sure hope you’re gonna say a whole case of _BurgerTime_ burgers, ‘cause I put the order in last week,” Ralph said, grinning.

Vanellope leapt up into the air, crowing, “Yes! You and me, friend-o, on the same wavelength as always. And we’re hitting up _Tapper’s_ after that?”

“You bet,” Ralph said. “I got the whole itinerary planned out. After _Tapper’s—_ oh.” He looked at Taffyta and King Candy. “Sorry, you two don’t need to stick around.”

With a yawn, Vanellope said, “Yeah, King Cavity, I’m sure you have, like, babies to make cry or something? Hey Taffyta, why do you still hang around with this guy, anyway?”

Taffyta glanced at him and despite herself, felt a smile creep onto her face. “Well, I think we’re kinda on the same wavelength.”

“Yeesh. _That’s_ a scary thought. Okay then, catch ya later, pal,” Vanellope said breezily. “I’ll swing by when my Ralph Vacation Planning Inc. tour’s over.” With a wave, her and Ralph headed off towards _BurgerTime_ , Vanellope greeting old friends along the way.

When the two of them were out of earshot, Taffyta let out a big whoosh of air and allowed her shoulders sag. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been. The reunion could have gone a lot worse, so she was going to chalk this one up as a win. No one had come to tears or blows, there hadn’t been any recriminations or yelling, and Taffyta and King Candy were still free to go about their night. Part of her was afraid every time Vanellope showed up that she was going to rescind the rights she’d given him—to live in _Sugar Rush_ , to race, to live as normal a life as possible, considering who he was and what he’d done. She was still president, after all, even though she wasn’t around anymore.

Together, Taffyta and King Candy headed next door to _Sugar Rush_ and took the escalators up to the platform level of the station, where their karts were parked. “Same wavelength, huh?” King Candy asked.

Taffyta climbed into her kart, letting her hair swing forward and hoping it covered the fact that a flush was rising to her cheeks. The butterflies were back. “You don’t think so?” she asked, busying herself with her seatbelt.

King Candy sat down in his kart and stretched his arms over his head. “Oh, I never said that.”

Wrapping her hands around Pink Lightning’s steering wheel, she said, “Okay, so what are we doing for the rest of the night? I’ll let you know if I was thinking the same thing.”

With a laugh, he replied, “I’ll leave that entirely up to you, my dear.”

“Well.” She drummed her fingers on the side of her kart. The sensible thing to do was to go home and get some sleep, but she wasn’t tired. Or sensible, to be totally honest. Between the Bad Anon meeting and Vanellope’s arrival back in the arcade, she felt way too hyped up. “Should we see if Candlehead’s still feeding the gummi sharks out at Chocolate Seashell Beach?”

He grinned and hit the starter on his kart, and it sputtered to life with a punch of glittery sugar, settling into a steady purr. “Soundsth like a good way to spend a few hours.” Then, a flicker of trepidation passed over his face. “Just—you know, as long as I don’t have to swim with them again.”

Taffyta started Pink Lightning, feeling the comforting rumble of her engine thrum through her. “Oh, come on. They’re friendly!”

“Her favorite one tried to take a _bite_ out of my _calf_ ,” he said in an aggrieved tone.

When she snorted with laughter, he looked even more put out, so she made a serious, for-real effort to not laugh. Sort of. Well, okay, not really. In fact, she maybe was struggling not to break into a fit of giggles. “No—okay, really, no,” she said, getting it under control. “We’ll just feed them.”

He fished his goggles out from under the dash of the Royal Racer and snapped them over his eyes. “I’ll see you there,” he said, and then, with a wicked grin, added, “And no—hoo-hoo—don’t worry, I don’t mind that you’re going to keep me waiting, since, I mean, it’ll probably take you at _least_ an extra two minutesth.”

“Funny,” she smirked. “I’ll remind you that you said that when you finally get there.”

That made him laugh, and then, one after the other, they shifted their karts into gear and shot into the tunnel that would bring them to _Sugar Rush._

~

A few hours at the beach was just what she needed to relax. Candlehead was still there and she was happy to introduce them to the sharks, whom she’d obviously named. Eventually, at the other woman’s urging, Taffyta stripped down to her underwear and jumped into the water, where Candlehead excitedly had her feed Archduke Franz Marzipan III some Swedish Fish chum out of her hand.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come in, King Candy?” Candlehead yelled as she bobbed in the waves.

He shook his head vehemently and sprawled on the sand with great enthusiasm, like he couldn’t move even if he’d tried. “Oh, no, it’s—I’m totally fine here, didn’t bring a swimsuit, you know—hoo-hoo—you ladiesth just enjoy your swim with the deadly animals…”

“Miss Nibbles wants to meet you!”

He cupped a hand to his ear and shook his head helplessly as though he couldn’t hear Candlehead, though Taffyta knew perfectly well that he could.

Eventually, the sharks swam off. Taffyta and Candlehead spent a few more minutes splashing and diving around before coming out of the water. When they did, King Candy glanced at Taffyta, then quickly averted his eyes. Was he turning just a tiny, little bit red? It wasn’t like her underwear was risqué or anything, it covered at least as much as Candlehead’s swimsuit. She stifled a sigh. It just bothered him to see her anything less than completely clothed. Why wouldn’t it, when he saw her as nothing more than a friend?

She’d done the math over and over since she’d realized, a year and a half ago, how she felt about him. Despite the fact that he’d coded himself to look upwards of sixty, his real, programmed age was thirty-five. And that put only ten years between them. Too bad that everything else—the fact that she’d been a child to him for so long, the fact he’d been thinking of her as a friend for the same amount of time, that _TurboTime_ had been plugged in fifteen years before _Sugar Rush_ —all of that was a gulf that she didn’t know how to cross. It seemed clear that _he_ didn’t want to.

Candlehead let Taffyta use her towel to dry off and once they were both dressed again, she asked brightly, “So did Vanellope get here?”

With a scoff, King Candy said, “Unfortunately.”

Looking at him seriously, Candlehead said, “You shouldn’t say stuff like that, King Candy. People will think you don’t like Vanellope.”

He gave her an amused look. “Oh?”

Taffyta dumped sand out of her shoes and slipped them onto her feet, looking out at the turquoise sea. The sun glinted off the waves as they lapped gently at the shore. Summer in _Sugar Rush_ was the best, which was a funny thought to have, because up until the upgrade to the game two years previously, there hadn’t been seasons at all, or day and night, or, well, most obviously, there hadn’t been a bunch of twenty-somethings running around the game.

At first, the upgrade had been a nightmare. She’d gone to bed one night nine years old and woken up twenty-five in a body that she didn’t know. That had been bad enough. Much worse had been the fact that the upgrade had almost wiped King Candy out of the game. For two of the longest, most horrible weeks of her life, she’d thought he was dead. When she’d discovered he wasn’t, she’d found him in the code vault, figured out a way to talk to him, and fixed his code. The rudimentary coding skills that he’d taught her up until that point got a big boost from the whole experience.

Now though, she thought the upgrade was pretty cool. She liked having a day-night cycle and she especially liked having seasons. Winter was her least favorite, but even that had its nice points. The snow was pretty, at least. But summer was obviously the best. She even liked being an adult. She thought about things more deeply now, felt them more deeply too, and was able to articulate how she felt. Connections between things, patterns, nuance, shades of gray—all of it was more obvious to her. Plus there was alcohol, and that was a plus.

Candlehead was nodding vigorously and saying, “Vanellope’s still president, so that means we all have to like her.”

At that, Taffyta laughed. “We don’t have to like her just because she’s president.”

Her eyes widening, Candlehead said, “But—we _don’t?_ I always thought being president meant everyone liked you…”

King Candy chuckled. “Candlehead, if you were ever president, we’d all like you.”

She grinned. “Thanks, but I know! Everyone likes me already.” Then, she stood up, brushing sand off her tights. “We should go, guys. We’re still meeting Vanellope, right?”

Taffyta stood up too. “Yeah.” Vanellope’s visits always went the same way. She spent the first several hours with Ralph, then she came back to _Sugar Rush_ and met all the racers in the stadium. Usually they had a few races before the arcade opened, and then Vanellope would leave to go hang out in _Fix-It Felix Jr._ until the arcade closed again. Taffyta hesitated before opening her mouth, but then she said, “I might not race with her tonight.”

“Huh?” Candlehead said. “Why?”

_Because she cheats?_ Taffyta wanted to say. But she kept her mouth shut and instead just shrugged, replying instead, “I just have some stuff to do.” This was a lie, she had nothing else to do, but she didn’t really want to ditch King Candy to race with Vanellope. “I’ll go and say hi, though. You don’t have to come,” she added to him.

He got to his feet, shaking sand out of his tailcoat. “Oh, I’ll come with you. I’m a glutton for punishment, you know.”

The three of them headed back to their karts and drove to the stadium. By the time they got there, Vanellope and most of the other racers had already arrived. Rancis and Minty had their arms around each other and—Snowanna and Jubileena were holding hands! Ha. _Finally._ Taffyta had been telling Jubileena for _weeks_ to just tell Snowanna how she felt.

As they cut their kart engines, Taffyta heard Vanellope regaling the others with a horrible sounding story about a player mounting machine guns on their car in _Slaughter Race_ and taking out practically everyone on Shank’s crew.

Taffyta and Candlehead approached, and when Vanellope looked at them, Candlehead squealed and ran towards her, hugging the other woman. “We missed you, Vanellope! Are you bored with _Slaughter Race_ yet? Are you going to come back to live here?”

“No way!” Vanellope said. “We’re getting a bunch of new tracks with this update. I can’t wait to check ‘em out.”

Candlehead looked crestfallen. “We got new tracks when we got upgraded.”

To her credit, Vanellope looked a little guilty. “I mean, yeah, you did. And they’re fun! But it’s not like you get new ones every few months like _Slaughter Race_ does.”

There was an awkward silence. No one could argue with this. They actually _had_ gotten one new track since the upgrade two years ago, but in that same amount of time, _Slaughter Race_ had expanded more times than Taffyta could remember. And that was the reason Vanellope had left—she was bored. Racing wasn’t enough for her, she had to race somewhere that she couldn’t do it with her eyes closed. Taffyta didn’t get it. Of course she didn’t want to be bored, but their game _wasn’t_ boring. You never knew what was going to happen in a race, who was going to win, who was going to come out of nowhere with a power-up, who was going to surprise you with the way they’d modded their kart.

Vanellope bit her lip and scuffed the toe of her boot on the ground, obviously able to tell that she’d put a damper on the mood. “But hey, I still like racing here too. I bet you guys know tons of shortcuts on the newer tracks that I don’t know about. And hey, get this!” She brightened. “I was thinking maybe I’d race with all of you during the day, when the arcade’s open—you know, for old time’s sake?” The other racers smiled and nodded, Jubileena and Crumbelina actually exclaiming with delight. Taffyta was doing the math though. There were only nine roster spots, and that meant—

Carelessly, Vanellope glanced over at King Candy. “I’ll take your spot on the roster, Turbutt.”

All the chatter between the other racers immediately stopped. Taffyta clenched her fists at her sides. It would have been nice to get through at least twelve hours without a showdown between the arcade’s mortal enemies, but she guessed they were doing this.

King Candy had been leaning against the hood of his kart, his arms crossed over his chest, keeping himself separate from this reunion. But at these words, he looked up. At first, there was a flicker of betrayal in his eyes, but he masked it so fast that Taffyta was positive that she was the only one who’d seen it. “Excuse me?” he said, the lightness in his tone a thin veneer over the danger underneath.

“Yeah.” Vanellope barely looked at him. “I’ll take your spot, thanks. So why don’t you hit the road, Jack?”

Candlehead folded her hands nervously in front of her, while Jubileena and Snowanna glanced at each other. Minty wrapped a hand around Rancis’s arm and looked alarmed, while Crumbelina put her hands on her hips and took a step back.

There was a moment of silence, and then King Candy chuckled—not at all nicely—and bounced to his feet. It took everything Taffyta had not to cover her eyes. Clasping his hands behind his back, King Candy said in a tone that was cheerful, bright, and absolutely dripping with venom, “Look, Vanellope, I understand that the toxic fumes in that ‘game’ of yoursth have probably killed off your few remaining brain cells, but let me remind you how we do things here.”

Oh, god.

He took a few steps closer and the brightness in his voice dropped away as the bite grew more acerbic. “See, we have this race _every_ night, and that’s how we determine the next day’s avatarsth—stop me if this sounds familiar—and the thing is, _you_ didn’t race tonight, so I guess that means you don’t have a spot.”

Rolling her eyes, Vanellope said, “Yeah, and there’s nothing that says anyone can’t race, jerkface. So I didn’t do the Random Roster Race, big deal.”

He glared at her. “You can’t have my spot, glitch.”

“Hey, come on,” Rancis said in a conciliatory voice. Vanellope and King Candy ignored him.

Turning to the rest of them, Vanellope said, “Guys, back me up. You wanna race with me again, right?” When only silence met this question, she repeated, “ _Right?_ ”

The other racers looked anywhere but at Vanellope, a couple of them mumbling something. Rancis looked from King Candy to Taffyta, his mouth open to speak, but then he shut it. Yeah, good move on his part. Taffyta had always thought that Rancis had had kind of a little-kid crush on Vanellope when they’d been younger, but it had waned once they’d grown up. If he’d taken the wrong side here, Taffyta never would have forgiven him.

Snowanna cleared her throat. “Well—yeah, Vanellope, sure. But King Candy does _kind_ of have a point.” Jubileena nodded vigorously in agreement with this and Snowanna added, “I mean, he got first place earlier tonight, and it doesn’t seem fair exactly to just take his spot…”

“Fair,” Vanellope repeated. “Am I in like, some kind of bizarro world? You guys remember what he did to all of us, right? Don’t tell me he locked up your memories again?”

King Candy studied his fingernails. “Ooh, President Game-Jumper, looks like you got outvoted.”

She bristled. “I am _not_ a game-jumper.”

“Oh, sorry.” He rolled his eyes. “You only call it that if it’s me.”

Taking a step towards him and putting a finger in his face, Vanellope snapped, “You know what, King Cavity, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The only reason you’re here is because I say so, and if I stop saying so, you’re gone.”

Candlehead put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Vanellope, don’t—”

Fury was burning through Taffyta, but with effort, she forced it down and pushed her way between the two of them. Physically separating them with her hands, she said, “Hey, quit it. _I’ll_ give up my roster spot, okay? Vanellope, you can have it. It’s fine.”

Putting her hands on her hips, Vanellope said, “No way, Taffyta. For starters, _you_ shouldn’t have to give up your spot for _him_. And anyway, I don’t race with him. That’s the rule.”

“Oh,” King Candy sneered. “So you remember _that_ rule, but not the one about not stealing other racers’ roster spots.”

“Stealing other racers’ spots? Are you _serious_ right now?” Vanellope glared at him. “You stole my entire game from me, you lousy 80s dirtbag!”

He clenched his fists, his arms ramrod straight at his sides. “And it’s obvious how much this game meant to you, considering you _left_ the minute something mildly more shiny and _interesthting_ came along.” Baring his teeth, he said, “I may be an 80s _dirtbag_ but at least I stuck around.”

That made Vanellope laugh meanly. “Yeah, you stuck around because I _let_ you! You’re only a _racer_ here because I let you, and maybe I’m about to change my mind!”

For a long, horrible moment, Taffyta thought King Candy would say something else, and then Vanellope would get even madder and maybe actually go through with it, or at the very least go out into Game Central Station and start making trouble. The two of them glared at each other and Taffyta, caught between them, was getting a full blast of loathing.

But then, audibly grinding his teeth, King Candy took a step back. “Fine,” he said, flicking a wrist, like this whole thing bored him. “Take it. It’s _all_ yoursth, glitch.” He stalked back to his kart and got in, then started it and drove off, his expression murderous.

Taffyta put a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and ran through her mental list of why it was a Bad Idea to argue with Vanellope about this. 1. Everyone in the arcade loved her, and Taffyta didn’t have that luxury. 2. King Candy _really_ didn’t have that luxury. 3. Vanellope had done King Candy _way_ more favors than he deserved, allowing him to stay in the game first of all, and then letting him race again. 4. She really _did_ hold his fate in her hands. And of course, 5. there was no forgetting, for anyone, the fact that Taffyta had been the biggest bully in _Sugar Rush_ during the fifteen years that King Candy had wrongfully ruled it.

Vanellope was glitching from stress, but Taffyta couldn’t find it in herself to have any sympathy for her. She thought _she_ was stressed out? Try having to play mediator between your best friend and your MIA, game-jumping president. Instead, she strode over to her own kart and got in. Then, there was a garbling sound, and Vanellope glitched, appearing next to Pink Lightning. Taffyta grit her teeth and tried not to scream in frustration.

“Where are you going?” Vanellope asked, sounding worried, coders knew about what. That Taffyta was mad at her? Of _course_ she was mad. That Taffyta was going to do something stupid? Huh. Well, Vanellope’s definition of ‘stupid’ was clearly a lot different than Taffyta’s, so who knew.

Taffyta started her kart. “After him,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it was. Without looking back, she shifted and gunned it out of the town square.


	3. Chapter 3

He hadn’t gone far. Taffyta found him parked on the side of the road near the jump that led from Chocolate Plain to Gumball Gorge, sitting on the hood of his kart and picking rock candy crystals off a nearby bush. As she pulled up and parked next to him, he glanced over at her from under furrowed brows, then went back to staring into the distance at the gorge. That line on his forehead was unmistakable. He was seething and he wanted to be alone.

For a moment, Taffyta just sat in her kart, looking at him. Then, with a sigh, she got out. “Scoot over,” she said, nudging him with an elbow.

After a second, he did, though he didn’t look at her. She slid onto the hood of the Royal Racer next to him, not saying anything.

The sun was going down, a brilliant red ball of fire that left watercolor trails of pink and orange across the sky. The glass gumball machines of the gorge caught the light and reflected it back in candescent flares as a flock of Marshmallow Peeps flew overhead in a V. The moment should have been unpleasant, considering the fury holding every muscle in King Candy’s body tight. It wasn’t. Well, not for her, at least. The view was beautiful and she was sitting next to him, their sides just barely touching. His warmth made something flutter in her stomach.

“You wanna talk about it?” she finally asked.

They were close enough that she could feel his breathing change. He let out a quiet hiss and then said, “No.”

Taffyta nodded, her eyes still on the gorge. The gumball machines were changing with the setting sun, now filled with swirls of purple and pink. They looked like they were stuffed with cotton candy clouds. “Okay.” 

Anger radiated off him. After a second, he dumped the handful of rock candy in his hand onto the ground, sending it rolling down the hill in a glittering green avalanche. The crystals disappeared from sight and Taffyta flicked her eyes back up, staring at the way he had one leg stretched out and one propped up in front of him. It probably wasn’t the right thing to be thinking about in that moment, but his legs were like…well, nice to look at. That definitely _wasn’t_ something you were supposed to think about your best friend, but who was she kidding, her feelings for King Candy had gone way past ‘just friends’ a long time ago.

With a noise that was halfway between a sigh and a growl, he leaned forward, resting his arm on his knee. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth was set in a thin line. “I was _not_ broken up about it when she left,” he said in a low voice.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it,” Taffyta said. Could she get away with scooching closer to him?

He blew a puff of air out of his mouth. “I don’t.”

For a minute, she waited to see if he was going to say anything else, but he remained silent. Not that she bought for a second that he didn’t have something to say about what had just happened. She was sure he had _plenty_ to say, since he had plenty to say on just about everything, but she also knew that she had to give him the space to say it in his own time. Which was hard for her. She wanted to figure stuff out immediately, not sit around stewing about it and doing nothing.

So she just nodded. For awhile, they sat there in silence as the sky grew first more vivid, and then muted itself into a pastel swirl of violet and indigo, highlighted here and there with pink streaks. The sun sank below the Frosty Mountains and the first stars began to shine in the twilight sky, like grains of sugar thrown across a dusky blue blanket.

Eventually, his breathing evened as his fury ebbed. Obviously she wasn’t going to do it, but it was times like this that she wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him how proud of him she was. Sure, everyone else would get on his case for arguing with Vanellope in the first place, but this was a man who’d done some really bad stuff. To watch him control that darkness wasn’t something she was ever going to take for granted. She knew it wasn’t easy for him.

She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “So,” she said, “want to race?”

This had exactly the effect she wanted it to. Surprise flickered over his face, smoothing away the tense lines in his forehead and the bright anger in his eyes. “Just the two of us?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She smiled at him. “Why not?”

“Well.” An answering smile twitched at his mouth. “I suppose I just—how do I put this, oh that’s right—I didn’t realize you wanted to lose to me twice in one night.”

“Oh, ha ha,” she said sarcastically. Resting her chin on her knees, she went on, “If Candlehead hadn’t taken me out with that Sweet Seeker, I would’ve kicked your butt in the Random Roster Race, and we both know it.”

“Mm.” He flicked a few flecks of rock candy off his hand. “If it makes you feel better, then by all meansth, keep telling yourself that.”

She gave him a sidelong look. “And I haven’t heard you agree to race yet. Scared you might get beat?”

“Taffyta.” He put a hand over his heart and looked at her earnestly. “It’s not that. It’s just—I want to apologize in advance. You know. For how badly you’re going to lose.”

With a bright laugh, she reached back into his kart and grabbed his helmet, shoving it lightly into his chest. “You’re on, Candy.”

He took it from her and grinned, and she slid off the hood of the Royal Racer to get back into Pink Lightning. As she put her helmet on and flipped her visor down, he said, “First to the overlook wins?”

“Sure.”

The overlook was in the Frosty Mountains and it was the one spot in the game that she’d always thought of as _theirs._ Sure, they’d been roommates for nine years, but that was just a house. The overlook was where their friendship had taken root and it had always been special to both of them. They still went there to have a place where they knew they wouldn’t be watched or overheard, and even though there was no way the other racers weren’t aware of its existence, Taffyta had never run into any of them there. Maybe they weren’t interested in it, or maybe they just knew that it was already claimed. Taffyta’s status had taken a hit when the game had reset almost a decade ago, but not so much that any of the other racers would dare move in on something she considered hers.

The two of them started their karts and held each other’s eyes for a long moment. Then, on her nod, they both took off, their engines roaring as they gunned it. Neither of them had much time to get up any speed for the jump, but that just made it more of a challenge—and they both made it into the gorge. Since this wasn’t an official race, the gumballs remained in the machines. It made the gorge less difficult, but more fun, as the two of them urged as much speed as possible out of the karts, shooting through the canyon like two atomic fireballs in the barrel of a Sweet Seeker cannon. The sound of their engines echoed off the red and yellow striped walls, bouncing around and making it sound like this was a full roster race instead of just the game’s two best racers.

He hit the boost pad a second before she did and pulled ahead of her, but she just leaned lower over her steering wheel. The Royal Racer was faster than Pink Lightning, that was no secret. But speed wasn’t everything.

With a thud, Pink Lightning landed on the next section of track. Taffyta shifted and pulled even with King Candy as they started up Layer Cake Hill. He glanced at her and said, “You know, Taffyta, it’s okay to come in second. You shouldn’t feel too bad.”

Resting her elbow on the side of her kart, Taffyta replied, “Aw, that’s so mature of you to realize that about yourself. Serious character growth, nice job!” Shooting him a grin, she upshifted again and passed him. Yep, speed wasn’t everything. Pink Lightning handled _way_ better on these tight turns than the Royal Racer did.

But it wasn’t like she was going to _lose_ him. No way. This was King Candy, after all, who was the best racer in _Sugar Rush._ Better than Vanellope, for sure, since he’d never had to cheat to win. He stayed right on her tail into the cookie straw at the top of the hill, and she heard his engine make a noise, a rumbling whine that made her clench her fingers around her steering wheel as he accelerated past her with a hooting laugh.

Ugh. Well, they all had their tricks, right? The two of them knew every shortcut and trick on the tracks themselves, so that left what they could do with their karts. Taffyta was always figuring out new ways to get Pink Lightning to go faster and she wasn’t naïve enough to think that King Candy wasn’t doing the exact same thing with the Royal Racer. The upgrade had opened up a whole new world of mods, some unlockable by players, but most made by the racers in their off-hours. Whether the gamers could tell which racers had modded their karts or not was a mystery to Taffyta, but she didn’t really care. They chose her because she won, and that was what mattered.

They landed on the striped taffy rope ramp at almost the same time, but he was ahead of her again. Okay, time to get serious. The track climbed from here into the Frosty Mountains, where it was already dark. As snow began blowing across the road and accumulating in drifts on either side of the track, she scrunched herself low in her seat, her fingers twitching in preparation for the series of moves she was going to make to pull off her win.

All the mountain tracks split off from the Royal Raceway along this stretch of road and Taffyta and King Candy blew by all of them, snow spraying off their tires and karts roaring in the cold mountain air. Instead, she fixed her eyes on one treacherous curve in the track. Doing this at night was nuts, a stupid risk that for most of the racers would probably end in painful death on the sharp rocks below, then regeneration. Not for the two of them, though. The snow reflected just enough light for her to see, and anyway, she knew every track in the game like the back of her hand. Just past the curve was the little road that led up to the overlook. Okay, showtime.

The two of them entered the turn at almost the same time, King Candy just _slightly_ ahead of her, and she pulled her handbrake up to maximize her drift. Then, as the two of them careened onto the track that led up to the overlook, she stomped on the clutch, shifted, and gunned it harder than she’d ever dare to during a race. It was the kind of move that could lead to a stall, but right now she knew it wasn’t going to.

The path up to the overlook had a wall of solid, curving ice on one side, like a half-pipe turned on its side. Even in the dark, it seemed to contain its own light, glowing blue against the side of the snow-covered mountain. As Pink Lightning roared, Taffyta steered her up onto that curved wall until she was practically dangling upside down in her seat. Her kart was losing speed but she just needed a _few_ more feet. She narrowed her eyes in concentration and held her foot down on the pedal.

Then, just for fun, she spared a fraction of a second to look down at King Candy. He was staring up at her, his mouth open a little and his eyes wide in his goggles. Taffyta laughed, shifted, and finally felt Pink Lightning lose her grip on the wall.

The kart fell but Taffyta expertly flipped her mid-air and landed on all four tires in front of King Candy. She shifted and gunned it again, feeling her rear wheels spray snow.

Then, in a matter of seconds, she rounded the final curve of the path and found herself on the overlook. She braked hard, turning her kart sideways, and came to a stop, already smiling smugly at King Candy as he arrived a second after her.

Immediately, he jumped out of his kart, tossing his helmet and his goggles into the seat. She expected him to say something—but he just stood there staring at her. Taffyta took her time getting out, swinging her legs out of Pink Lightning like she hadn’t just pulled off one of the coolest maneuvers ever. She pulled her helmet off and shook her hair out, running a hand through it, then braced her helmet on her hip and grinned at him.

He was still staring at her. There was a funny look on his face that she couldn’t read, almost like—like in some way he hadn’t ever really _seen_ her before? Which was stupid. But he looked like he couldn’t tear his eyes away, and so finally she said, “Hey, Earth to King Candy? I won.”

“Oh.” He shook himself, straightened the lapels of his tailcoat, and adjusted his crown, his eyes flicking everywhere and looking anywhere but at her. “Yes, I mean, so you did. Where did you…?”

“Learn how to do that?” she asked, her smile still smug. “It’s just something I’ve been working on.”

His eyes finally settled on her again, and there was something in them that she still couldn’t figure out. Wait—he wasn’t actually _mad_ , was he? He’d always encouraged her to sharpen her skills, why would that change now?

But finally, he smiled at her. “That was—well it was amazing, quite honestly, my dear. I’m—” He paused again, staring at her, and then cleared his throat. “I’m impressed.”

She flipped her hair and put her helmet down in her kart. “I thought you might be.”

Haltingly, he came towards her. What was going _on?_ He was acting really weird, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with Vanellope. He looked more like he’d just remembered something, or realized something, and like he didn’t know what to do about it.

Ha, well, maybe he’d just realized she was a better racer than he was. It was tempting to rub it in, but she resisted the urge, instead standing there with him in silence when he joined her at her side. The two of them looked out over _Sugar Rush_ , lights twinkling here and there in the dark. Some of the racers’ houses were visible from here, and the castle, of course. No one lived there, but it still glowed with light. The stadium blazed, but from this distance, it wasn’t possible to see if anyone was still there.

“So, listen,” she said. “I’m not going to race tomorrow either. If Vanellope’s going to take your spot, she can race with someone else.”

His entire demeanor changed and he snarled, “Don’t you _dare_ take yourself off that roster.”

She put her hand on her hip and stared at him flatly. “Excuse me?”

Immediately, he held his hands up, looking chagrined. “Sorry.” She pursed her lips, and he added, “Really, Taff, I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t—I’m sorry.”

Shaking her head in exasperation, Taffyta said, “I know you’re not. But you still don’t get to take it out on me.” His hands stayed up in apology, and she sniffed, then relented. “And by the way, it’s not up to _you_ if I’m on the roster or not. I can give up my spot if I want to. Somebody should send a message to Vanellope that she can’t just waltz in here after she’s been gone for three years and start dictating whose roster spot she takes.”

“Yes well, I don’t think think that’s a message she’sth going to pay much attention to, coming from you.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked out over _Sugar Rush_. His eyes were trained on the castle. Taffyta had wondered, now and then over the years, if he ever missed living there. The only thing she knew for sure that he missed about being king was the fact that everyone had adored him. He hated being, well, _hated_ , and she knew it wore on him. His go-to coping mechanism was to pretend he actually _wanted_ everyone to hate him, but she’d seen through that one nine years ago, right after _Sugar Rush_ had reset.

“Maybe I can get a few of the other racers to drop out in protest,” Taffyta said doubtfully.

He turned to her, an eyebrow arched. “Maybe the arcade will name me Character of the Year.”

“Okay, okay, I get the point. I should let Vanellope do what she wants, I’m stupid to try to let her know I don’t like how she’s acting, it’s better to just pretend like I don’t care.” She crossed her arms over her chest tightly and glared at the dark landscape.

There was a light, hesitant touch on her shoulder, and she turned her head to meet King Candy’s eyes. “I guess—hoo-hoo—that’s how I come across?”

“Sometimes,” she sighed.

His brow furrowed. “Look, Taff. I appreciate that, you know, you’re on my side. You _do_ know that, right? I mean, I never would’ve—none of this, me being around—still racing—that is, it’s all because you’ve alwaysth been on my side. But the thing is, you’re the only one. And yes—” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to object. “—I know, I know, the other racersth, right. Yes. Except when push comes to shove they’re not going to make waves. _You_ of all people should know that. They listened to you. Now they listen to the glitch.” His fingers tightened around her shoulder. “Listen. I want you to race tomorrow. Today. Whatever. I want you to race and beat her every time.”

Taffyta tucked her hair behind her ears and pursed her lips at him. “You _know_ that’s not going to happen. Not with her sugar-frosted _glitching_. I mean, some races, sure, but every one of them…” But she trailed off at the fierce look in his eyes.

“After what I just saw you do?” he said, pointing back over his shoulder at the snowy track. “Of course you can.”

Heat crept up her cheeks. Did he really think—? No way, it was totally unreasonable. Taffyta’d had two perfect days in her life, where she’d won gold in every race, but obviously Vanellope hadn’t been on the roster either of those times. You couldn’t win against someone who cheated, not consistently. But he’d said he thought she could do it, and he was still looking at her the same way, like he really believed it.

Taking a breath, she said, “I mean, I can try. But like, no guarantees.”

He nodded, then let his eyes drift back to the _Sugar Rush_. “I wish she’d stop coming back,” he said bitterly.

The worst part was, Taffyta kind of agreed with him. Why did Vanellope even bother? It wasn’t like she was ever going to come back to live in Litwak’s. She’d made it really clear, crystal clear, Karo syrup clear, that _Slaughter Race_ was more of a challenge, that she didn’t get bored there, that she felt like she belonged. That she liked everyone there better, and that whatever her friendships were with the _Sugar Rush_ racers, they were never going to come close to comparing with her new ones. Taffyta was so _sick_ of hearing about Shank and Pyro and Debbie and Butcher Boy. Like, what kind of name was Butcher Boy, anyway?

Vanellope thought she was doing everyone in Litwak’s some big favor by coming back to visit, but really she was ripping open an old wound every time. She thought they were a bunch of boring bumpkins and she’d never liked any of them very much. Those were facts, and all of her pretending otherwise wasn’t ever going to fool Taffyta.

Her heart suddenly heavy, she leaned her head against King Candy’s shoulder. He tensed, then relaxed. “She’ll be gone in a day or two,” Taffyta said, trying for a bracing tone. It just came out sounding tired and beaten. “Then everything can go back to normal.”

His arm went around her, his hand squeezing her shoulder. It was the best feeling in the whole world. “Right,” he said. “Just a bunch of yokels doing the same thing we’ve alwaysth done. Hey, you’d think if she wanted excitement, she’d race with me. I’m only her arch-nemesis, after all.”

She thought about pointing out that he’d done some pretty horrible stuff and he probably shouldn’t be so cavalier about it. With his arm around her, though, it was hard to remember the things that had happened so long ago—the betrayal and the horror she’d felt back then were so far away, and he’d spent nine years trying to be better. And what did he have to show for it? The whole arcade still hated him, and Vanellope could come back to a game that she’d abandoned and kick him off the roster. Instead, she said, “Yeah, you want me to suggest that? I’m sure it’ll go over really well.”

With a chuckle, he said, “I appreciate it, but maybe not. I’ll try not to antagonize the glitch anymore, how’sth that sound? Then we can forget about her until the next time she _graces_ us with her presence.” He withdrew his arm and Taffyta stifled a sigh. He didn’t notice. Instead, he squinted towards the stadium, his hands on his hips.

Two more hours until the arcade opened. Taffyta tugged her gloves up. Two hours to think of every trick up her sleeve to beat Vanellope in—well, if not every race, then at least most of them. She glanced at King Candy and felt something swell behind her sternum. If he thought she could do it, then she’d do it.


	4. Chapter 4

Thirty-five wins, sixteen losses. Losses being anything other than first place, of course, though she’d actually placed higher than Vanellope forty-two times. It helped that every single gamer yelled in delight at seeing Vanellope back on the roster and selected her—and that Vanellope, maybe especially aware of what had happened the last time she’d raced in _Sugar Rush_ , played by the rules. Oh, she still glitched. But she was more subdued about it than Taffyta had seen her for a long, long time.

Plus, she hardly talked about _Slaughter Race_ at all. Taffyta had been expecting a lot of, ‘we drive _real_ cars in _Slaughter Race_ , not little go-karts,’ and ‘it’s so much better being an NPC, you can do whatever you want,’ oh, and of course, ‘we can drive anywhere, we don’t have to stick to the same old boring tracks!’ But Vanellope just commented on how much she liked the new tracks, how even the old ones seemed more challenging, and how the power-ups seemed more lethal than they had before.

So by the time the last race of the day rolled around, Taffyta was feeling more grudgingly accepting of Vanellope. She was still annoyed about her taking King Candy’s spot on the roster, but all in all, the day could have gone a lot worse than it had. And as they took their places at the starting line of Chocolate Seashell Beach for the final quarter alert, Taffyta was filled with smug confidence that she was going to finish up the day with another win against Vanellope. Chocolate Seashell Beach had always been one of her best tracks.

Vanellope jammed her helmet on her head and said, “Ready to lose, Taffyta?”

Taffyta glanced at the other woman out of the corner of her eyes. She might have been feeling a little less annoyed at Vanellope, but that didn’t mean she wanted to banter. In response, she just rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, sure.” She didn’t bother checking to see if Vanellope looked stung or not.

The players were taking forever to select an avatar, not that Taffyta had any doubt they’d choose Vanellope again. Was she really _that_ great? So she could _glitch_ , big deal. Her kart wasn’t anything special, plus it was ugly. Clearly the gamers didn’t care about winning on skill, only about winning, period. And they were perfectly happy to cheat. Even though she knew they didn’t see it as cheating—to them, it was just another power-up. Sometimes she wished they understood that what they thought were just pre-programmed pixels moving around on a screen actually had lives of their own. But if there was one thing that Taffyta knew even deeper in her code than racing, it was that you never, _ever_ alerted the gamers to the fact that you were more.

That was Vanellope’s problem. She couldn’t stick to the program. Well, for her sake, at least, it seemed like in _Slaughter Race_ that was okay. From everything Vanellope said, anything went in that game. Taffyta suppressed a shudder. It seemed horrible. She liked order and things in their place. She _liked_ having tracks to race on. That’s what they were for, _racing_. Why would she want to race in the rest of the game, the parts that the players never saw?

Then, _finally_ , the player chose an avatar. Taffyta felt her heart sink. They hadn’t chosen Vanellope. They’d selected Rancis.

Vanellope shot Taffyta a wicked grin as they all started their karts and the marshmallow holding the traffic signal floated into place. “Guess we finally get to have a fair match, huh?”

_Fair?!_ Taffyta wanted to pull her hair out and scream. There was nothing _fair_ about how Vanellope drove.

The light blipped from red to yellow and Taffyta grit her teeth and wrapped her fingers around the gearstick. She could beat Vanellope. She _could_ beat Vanellope.

With a blare, the light turned green and all nine racers tore away from the starting line, cocoa sand spraying up from their tires. Swizzle and Adorabeezle took the lead, the two of them disappearing into the sea arch just beyond the starting line. Taffyta found herself in third, with Candlehead right behind her as she shot through the arch. The track was a sandbar that cut underneath the rock formation, with waves crashing on one side. Every so often a larger one would break and flood the track, and Taffyta watched the surf as she drove, keeping half an eye on her side mirrors, too. Pixy sticks, Vanellope was coming up behind her.

Just when she thought she was in the clear, a huge wave rose up in the shallows and crashed against the shore. Frothy, fast moving water poured over the track and Taffyta shrieked, shifting into low gear a split second before the water hit her kart and pushed her to the far side of the track. _Don’t stall, don’t stall, don’t stall._ At least the water would catch Vanellope and slow her down, too.

Then, there was a garbling sound and a flash of blue, and Vanellope glitched right past the flooded out track, appearing ahead of Taffyta where the water didn’t reach. Vanellope glanced over her shoulder and saluted mockingly, then gunned it and glitched again, putting her even further ahead.

“ _Dammit!_ ” Taffyta snarled, likely too loudly, considering player-controlled Rancis was approaching from the rear. Candlehead, also caught in the breaking wave, was loudly bemoaning the fact that it had put her candle out, but that was like, her _thing_ , wasn’t it? And Taffyta was supposed to spout _stay sweet!_ as the player’s avatar went by. But yeah fudging right, she wasn’t going to let anyone else on this sugar-frosted roster pass her.

As the water finally receded, Taffyta jammed her foot down on the clutch, shifted into gear, and rocketed away. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and tore around the tight turns in the track as it wove in and out of partially flooded sea caves, the shallow water spraying off her tires. As she drifted around the corner that would bring her out onto the beach, she swiped a hand across her visor to clear water droplets from it.

Vanellope had taken the lead, pulling ahead of Swizz and Adorabeezle. Fury arced through Taffyta as the track turned to run along the shoreline. She grabbed her first power-up, avoided the Sticky Slick that one of the leading racers had already used, and smiled grimly as hers settled on a Sweet Seeker.

Water sprayed up from her tires as she took careful aim. The trick with Chocolate Seashell Beach was to use your power-ups to their full potential, and if you got a good one, that meant taking out as many of your fellow racers as possible with just one weapon.

There was one more cave on the track, a long, narrow tunnel with water dribbling from the ceiling in unpredictable spurts. Normally, a Sweet Seeker would automatically target the next closest racer, but the caves confused the guidance system and if you were good, you could aim it manually at someone else. As Taffyta gained on Adorabeezle and drew close to the tunnel, she took careful aim with the Sweet Seeker, lining it up precisely with her target.

Then, she fired. Perfect shot. The flaming atomic fireballs spiraled through the air and found their target—Swizzle, ahead of Adorabeezle. His kart went flying end over end and Adorabeezle, too close behind him to stop in time, slammed into him. Both karts crashed into the wall and Taffyta blew by them just as the other two racers began regenerating.

Glancing in her rear view mirror, she saw that Rancis was gaining on her. Leaning low over the steering wheel, she upshifted and started to put space between them again. The rest of the racers were an inconvenience. As far as Taffyta was concerned, this race was now between her and Vanellope.

She went screaming across the starting line to begin the second lap, managed to time the sea arch so that she got through it just before the next wave crashed through and flooded it, but still didn’t catch up with Vanellope. The power-up she got was useless, just Sprinkle Spikes, and she dropped them at the exit to the final cave in the hopes it would trip someone up. Rancis still wasn’t that far behind but he wasn’t gaining on her.

Taffyta grit her teeth so hard that her jaw hurt. There _was_ a shortcut on this track, but it was the most hit-or-miss one in the whole game. Time it right and it would put you out in the lead. Time it wrong, and a wave would wash you straight out to sea and you’d end up in last place.

But did she have any choice? If she wanted to beat Vanellope, she was going to need more than just killer driving. Taffyta took a deep breath and made her decision. As she reached the sea arch on the third lap, she cranked the wheel hard to the left and pulled up on the handbrake, drifting through a gap in the wall.

Her kart splashed through the tide pool on the other side of the track, three inches of water that her tires had no problem with. Then, her heart in her throat, she held one foot down on the pedal and the other on the clutch, shifting straight to the highest gear. Pink Lightning made a sound of protest and Taffyta made a mental apology to her.

The shortcut was nothing but a straightaway tunneled through the cliff, cutting from the beginning of the track to the end. It didn’t take any particular skill to enter it or to drive it. What made it difficult—what made it a death trap, actually—was that if you couldn’t outrun the wave that entered the sea arch, you’d get caught up in a jet of water and thrown out the other side like a kid spitting out a piece of too-sour candy, then washed out into the ocean to a steep drop-off where regeneration was automatic.

Taffyta kept her elbows tucked in and her head low, a high whine of _drivedrivedrivedrivedrive_ in her head while she counted the seconds she knew it took to traverse the radius of the track. Twenty-six seconds from start to finish, and she was halfway through, three-quarters of the way through; she was going to make it, she could see the circle of light in front of her growing larger and larger and she was going to pull this off—

Then she heard it. There was a roar behind her and a fine spray of droplets clouded the air in front of her headlights. Taffyta’s eyes narrowed to slits. No way. Not now. Not when she had this race in the bag.

With a deep breath, she reached under the steering column and punched a button there. She’d been working on the mod to turbo charge her engine for months and it had never worked right, not once in all the times she’d tested it, but desperate times. She had nothing to lose, because if she didn’t get a burst of speed right now, she was going to get wiped out of this race.

For a split second, nothing happened, and her stomach seized up as she braced herself for the impact of the column of water behind her. Then, with a shudder and a noise that was _definitely_ going to require looking into later, Pink Lightning’s engine revved and the kart blasted forward so fast that Taffyta was jolted back into her seat.

The blast of speed lasted for two seconds, two grit-your-teeth, lips-pulled-back, supercharged moments of pure velocity. It wasn’t long but it was enough.

She shot into the sunlight inches in front of the wave and yanked the handbrake up to execute the almost ninety-degree turn onto the top of the tunnel that finished off the track. Pink Lightning’s engine still didn’t sound quite right but she held down the gas and went flying off the edge of the cave mouth.

The tires landed on the soft sand with a thwump and spun for half a second. Then they caught and she shot forward. The finish line was in front of her, and Vanellope wasn’t there—because yes! _Yes!_ She was in Taffyta’s rear view mirror, there was a look of surprise on her face as she saw Taffyta in first place.

With a triumphant grin, Taffyta settled back in her seat, already savoring her victory.

And then there was a flash of blue behind her, a glitchy blur of electricity and binary, and she clenched her fingers around the steering wheel so tightly that she couldn’t feel them. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening _this wasn’t happening_.

Vanellope’s glitch brought her inches in front of Taffyta, and she crossed the finish line—in first. Taffyta had come in second.

She braked and skidded to a stop, Pink Lightning’s tires leaving marks on the wet sand. All she could do was sit there, her hands clutched around the wheel, while she stared out at the ocean without seeing it. Only the blast of midi trumpets made her move. Rancis had finished third, which meant the player got to see the trophy ceremony.

Taffyta made herself smile brightly and went to get her silver trophy, feeling sick with resentment and bitterness. When it was over, the smile dropped straight off her face. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Vanellope as the arcade closed and the lights in Litwak’s went out.

“Pretty good race, Taff, it was actually almost a challenge,” Vanellope said to her back.

Taffyta could hear the cocky grin in her voice and she balled her fists, ready to turn around and say—say— _something_ , she didn’t know what, something that would wipe that stupid smile off Vanellope’s face. Maybe she’d punch her, that would do it. But then a hand grabbed her arm and Rancis muttered, “Hey, don’t do something stupid.”

She glared at him and yanked her arm away, but he was right and she knew it. “Good race, Rancis,” she said in a monotone. 

Patting her on the shoulder, Rancis walked over to Minty, who’d come in last. Taffyta watched as Minty bounced out of her kart into his arms and kissed him, and then a voice said behind her, “Blech. _Gross._ Are they like that all the time?”

Taffyta turned around to see Vanellope standing there, her face twisted in distaste. With a nod and not much feeling, Taffyta said, “Yeah, pretty much. I guess they’re like, in love, right? So that’s what people do when they’re in love.” Was this some kind of newsflash to Vanellope? Rancis and Minty had been together for awhile now and yeah, sometimes they were all lovey-dovey with each other. Big deal.

Looking away from the other woman, Taffyta walked back to her kart. When Vanellope yelled, “Hey, where are you going?” Taffyta didn’t stop.

“Anywhere you’re _not_ ,” she muttered to herself. Leaving Vanellope hanging, she got back into Pink Lightning, punched the starter, and tore away. Hopefully she sprayed Vanellope with sand, but who was she kidding. Vanellope would just glitch out of the way and avoid having to face any consequences for anything, just like she always did.

Taffyta slammed a fist on the steering wheel and yelped in pain as her eyes teared up. She wished Vanellope would go back to _Slaughter Race_ and never come back.


	5. Chapter 5

Taffyta’s cheek hurt from resting it on her hand, and her thigh was going to have a bruise on it where her elbow was propped and digging into it. But she really didn’t feel like moving, because it was way less work to sit and stare sullenly across Game Central Station from the bench she was sitting on. Anyway, sitting and staring sullenly was the only thing she _wanted_ to do right now. She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to pretend like it was okay, she didn’t want to go to _Tapper’s_. She didn’t want to race, and she definitely, one hundred percent, did _not_ want to see Vanellope’s face.

“You know, getting a decent night’s sleep maybe, sort of, I dunno, wouldn’t be the _worst_ idea,” King Candy said, resting his forearms on the back of the bench and leaning into her field of vision.

“I don’t feel like sleeping,” she said. This was true. She’d never been less tired in her life. Sure, at some point it would become a necessity, but in twenty-four years of being plugged in, she’d managed to never pass out from exhaustion. She knew her limits. She’d sleep when she needed to and right now, she didn’t need to.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Yeah, I will,” she snapped. There was no reason to take it out on him. It wasn’t _his_ fault, he had nothing to do with any of it. Or maybe he actually had _everything_ to do with all of it. She definitely felt like she’d let him down. And she’d always wondered if maybe Vanellope didn’t love showing her up not _just_ because of the strained nature of their relationship, but also because Taffyta had always been King Candy’s favorite. Beating her was like beating him by proxy.

Lacing his fingers together, he asked, “I don’t suppose you want to talk about it?”

It was hard to suppress a snort. Sixteen hours ago they’d been having this same conversation with their roles reversed. Letting her hair fall further in front of her face, she said, “It just makes me so _mad_. She doesn’t race fair. She _cheats_. And no one cares.”

He made a noise and extended his index fingers, still keeping them pressed together. She recognized the gesture as one he made when he was about to say something that she wasn’t going to like. His mouth opened, but then he closed it and let the heels of his hands rest against the back of the bench. “Hey, like you said, she’ll be gone soon.”

Taffyta made a frustrated noise. Vanellope’s longest visit ever had been two days. That time had been her first visit back to the arcade since abandoning it and she’d hardly spent any time in _Sugar Rush_. Taffyta hadn’t been broken up about that.

Geez, what had _happened_ with her and Vanellope? After the game had reset, they’d become great friends. Taffyta had tried so hard to atone for the previous fifteen years, and Vanellope had been nothing but forgiving. But then everything had started going downhill, little by little so that at first Taffyta hadn’t even really noticed. By the time _Sugar Rush_ had gotten unplugged, nice moments between the two of them had been few and far between. Taffyta hated, hated, _hated_ the glitching, and she’d stopped trying to be quiet about it. Vanellope probably just thought she was turning back into the mean girl she’d been before.

The thing was, Taffyta wasn’t sure she’d ever stopped being that person. She’d just been good at hiding it for awhile.

“She never said how long she was staying, did you notice?” Taffyta muttered.

With a derisive snort, King Candy vaulted over the back of the bench to sit next to her. “She never does. Just another one of her charming qualitiesth.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You blew off the Random Roster Race, didn’t you?”

Turning her head to look at him, she sighed and didn’t answer this question. “I’m sorry I didn’t beat her every time like you wanted me to.”

“Oh, pfft. Please.”

“Seriously. You thought I could beat her, and the _one_ time she wasn’t a gamer’s avatar, I blew it.”

Guilt flickered across his face. “You don’t really—Taff, no, that’sth—just—I never wanted you to feel that way.”

She met his eyes, and with a little jolt of surprise, realized that the expression in them went far beyond guilt into something that she couldn’t put words to. “Yeah, well, I can’t help it. I disappointed both of us,” she said.

His hands clenched into fists, and then he uncurled one and squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve never disappointed me, and you know it.” Smiling a little, he added, “I mean, it would only be fair if you _did_ , considering what a serious disappointment _I_ am. You know, maybe it’s something you could consider working on. Even things out a little between us. What do you think?”

Despite herself, she giggled. His smile flashed so bright for a moment that she couldn’t help but feel better, even if it was only for a second. Then, he straightened up, looking across Game Central Station. Taffyta followed his gaze and saw Candlehead and Rancis, who seemed to spot them at the same time. The two of them exchanged words and though Rancis hesitated, Candlehead grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the bench where Taffyta and King Candy were sitting.

“Hi guys!” Candlehead chirped, sitting down next to Taffyta.

Rancis remained standing but exchanged a look with King Candy. “Hey, man, sorry about how everything…went down. With the roster, I mean.”

Smiling humorlessly, King Candy replied, “Chocolate sauce under the bridge.” When Rancis looked at him disbelievingly, he waved a hand and said, “Okay, fine, not really, but you have to say these thingsth, right?”

Candlehead shook her head. “Not to us! You don’t have to pretend. Like how you pretended you weren’t Turbo? Or, well, I guess we didn’t really know who Turbo was, so you weren’t really pretending you _weren’t_ him, I guess you were pretending to be King Candy, but…you _are_ King Candy, so…you were pretending to be…yourself?” Her eyes crossed and Rancis laughed. Even Taffyta had to put a hand over her mouth to hide a giggle.

King Candy held out a hand and deliberately glitched first it, then his arm, to Turbo’s gray skin and white jumpsuit. “You know, some days I’m still not sure who I am,” he said lightly, flickering once with red binary entirely to Turbo and then back to King Candy before anyone beside the three _Sugar Rush_ racers could notice.

Rancis crossed his arms over his chest, looking unimpressed by this in that way that only he could. But he said, “You guys want to get a burger or something?”

Shaking her head, Taffyta said, “I don’t want to run into Vanellope.”

As Candlehead made a sad face, Rancis said, “Yeah, we kind of figured. That last race was pretty rough.” When Taffyta glared at him, he shrugged and said, “Hey, don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t cool, especially after that ballsy move you pulled off.”

Looking at her, King Candy asked, “What move?”

“The shortcut on Chocolate Seashell Beach,” Rancis supplied when Taffyta didn’t answer. Like she wanted to talk about her failure? “She totally shouldn’t have made it, but she did, and then Vanellope used her glitch to win.”

There was an appreciative look on King Candy’s face. Taffyta hadn’t told him any of the particulars of the day’s final race, and she wasn’t about to re-live it now. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I pulled off some great move, big deal. It wasn’t enough, and I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Candlehead cocked her head. “You know what, Taffyta?” she said. “You need to do something _fun_.”

“I’m having _tons_ of fun, what are you talking about?” Taffyta asked sullenly.

There was a pause while Candlehead tried to figure out how Taffyta could possibly be having fun, then her face brightened as she realized that Taffyta wasn’t actually having any fun at all. You had to give Candlehead credit—she’d always catch up in the end. The key was to give her time to get there on her own. “Let’s do something stupid,” she said with a grin. “We’re grown-ups now and we’re not supposed to do anything dumb anymore, so that’s exactly what we should do.”

Rancis reached out and punched Taffyta lightly on the shoulder. “You can’t really argue with that logic.”

Taffyta rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to do something stupid just for the sake of doing it.”

“Okay,” Candlehead said innocently. “So I guess you won’t mind if… _TAG!_ You’re it!” She tapped Taffyta’s shoulder and bolted from the bench, dancing out of reach a few feet away.

With a huff, Taffyta crossed her arms over her chest and hooked one leg over the other, saying, “I’m not playing tag.”

“Yeah,” Rancis agreed. “Super childish, am I right?” He glanced over his shoulder at Candlehead, then shrugged. “You really weren’t ever that good at it anyway, Taffyta. You’re a good racer and everything, but you’re not so hot on foot.”

At this, she looked at him, her eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”

Rancis shrugged again. “No, it’s cool. I get it.”

Taffyta stared at him, then took a deep breath. “Good.” She sat back on the bench. Then, before Rancis could move, she shot to her feet and ran past him, tapping him on the arm as she said, “Then you’re it!”

With a laugh, Rancis came chasing after her, and Taffyta stuck out her tongue and bolted away, running after Candlehead, who was laughing her head off. She skidded around a bench and stopped, keeping the seat between her and Rancis. “You can’t stay there forever,” he said.

“I don’t have to stay here forever,” she said. “I only have to stay here until you make a dumb move.”

Rancis feinted to the right but she didn’t fall for it and ran in the other direction, towards one of the screens playing Sonic’s PSA. God, did anyone ever think about updating that? It was _ancient._ She sidled around the back only to find Candlehead hiding there too. “You have to get your own hiding place,” Candlehead whispered.

“That’s not a rule,” Taffyta shot back in a hiss.

As Candlehead opened her mouth to argue, Taffyta held up a hand for silence. Was that scuffing sound Rancis’s shoe? She took two steps back and shrieked as Rancis jumped around the other side of the screen, tagging Candlehead and running in the other direction. Candlehead raced after him and Taffyta spared a moment to run back to King Candy. “You should play,” she said breathlessly.

He waved a hand. “I’ll watch. Speaking of,” he added mildly, “you’d better look behind you.”

Taffyta glanced over her shoulder and with a gleeful laugh, ducked out of Candlehead’s way. The three of them chased each other across the station, occasionally running into other characters, once causing Zangief to drop his to-go burger from _BurgerTime_ , and being really, inarguably stupid.

She reached the escalators on the other side of the station and was prepared to push her way past the Nicelanders using it to get to the top before Candlehead could catch her. Suddenly, an alarm began sounding. She stopped dead in her tracks and Candlehead tagged her, yelling “Gotcha!” But Taffyta’s stillness and the alarm made her stop too.

The Nicelanders that had been on the escalator crowded around the railing on the second level as a group of characters gathered around Taffyta and Candlehead, all staring at the outlet in front of them. Rancis pushed his way to their sides as a _Sugar Rush_ NPC squeaked, “It’s an unplugging!”

Characters stampeded out of the outlet as the plug began receding. Taffyta felt sick. Every bad memory of her own game getting unplugged came flooding back, but somehow she’d never imagined how horrible it would be to _watch_ this happen. There hadn’t been any time to think when _Sugar Rush’s_ plug had been pulled. It had only been afterwards that the full impact of the situation had sunk in. Now all she could do was watch in frozen, helpless horror.

“I thought _Hoop Jamz_ was popular,” Janet from _Virtua Cop_ murmured, one hand raised halfway to her mouth.

“You just never know, do you?” said Kohut, Calhoun’s second-in-command, with a sad shake of his head.

One of the basketball players who had already made it out clutched at Kohut. “They’re not all going to get out!” he yelled, his eyes huge with panic.

The plug was almost completely free of Game Central Station and there was a collective gasp from the crowd as they all caught sight of the same thing at the same time: a woman running full tilt towards the exit, her face white with fear.

“She’s not going to make it,” one of the _DDR_ dancers said in dismay.

“Yes she is!” Candlehead squeaked.

Taffyta couldn’t speak at all, only watch, her stomach clenched with terror, as the woman got closer and closer, stretching out her arms. There were other characters behind her, Taffyta could suddenly see—and just as suddenly, she knew they were never going to get to the exit in time.

The characters around Taffyta were yelling encouragement to the woman—one of the basketball players shouted her name, Vicky or Trixie or something, and then, incredibly, she did it, she actually made it to the threshold and fell through just as the plug finally got pulled.

There was a cheer, but almost immediately, a scream cut through it. Taffyta clapped her hands over her mouth as she realized that the woman had only _mostly_ made it out of the game. She was missing three-quarters of her leg, which was fountaining blood.

Kohut sprang into action, with Janet right behind him, shouting orders at specific characters to rip off a sleeve for a tourniquet, go get a stretcher from _Hero’s Duty_ , find Doctor Robotnik, who had a surprising knack for patching people up.

Taffyta just stood there, unable to move, with Candlehead and Rancis at her side. When she realized the basketball player was still standing there too, looking lost, she asked in a small voice, “What happened?”

The player shook his head, looking dazed. “I don’t know. One minute everything was going fine, and the next, the whole court was getting swallowed up by this glitchy green pit. It was like a—like a hole straight to hell or something. Litwak saw it and pulled the plug, just like that.”

“A virus,” a voice said behind her. She turned to see King Candy, who was staring at the empty outlet and the triage around Vicky, or Trixie, or whatever her name was. Blood was everywhere, pooling on the floor and seeping into the cracks between the tiles. Kohut’s hands were covered in red. Taffyta wondered if the woman was even still alive.

The basketball player looked down at King Candy, twisted his face in dislike, but said, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it was.”

The thing was, Taffyta hadn’t needed King Candy to tell her what had taken out _Hoop Jamz._ As soon as the basketball player had described it, Taffyta had known. It was exactly what she herself had brought back to _Sugar Rush_ nine years ago, a virus that she’d picked up in _Extreme EZ Living 2_ , given to her by the arcade’s resident malware. She swallowed hard. The pit swallowing up everything, the sick green color—it was all the same. She reached back to grab King Candy’s arm, but he wrapped both of his hands around her shoulders instead.

It didn’t do anything to stop the sick dread creeping through her.


	6. Chapter 6

The second game to get its plug pulled happened during arcade hours. The same glitching green chasm appeared in _Altered Beast_ and Litwak yanked it from the outlet immediately. Some characters didn’t make it out. No one from _Sugar Rush_ found out until that evening, when Citrusella, Torvald, and Sticky went out to Game Central Station and saw all the newly homeless characters milling around, with Surge trying hard to keep some semblance of order. They’d come straight back and started spreading the word. Taffyta had been at Rancis’s house, hanging out with him and Candlehead.

None of them were very talkative. The specter of the previous evening’s disaster still loomed, and the three of them hadn’t even discussed spending the time together. They’d just gravitated to the decision. Taffyta’s mind kept replaying that woman’s leg getting sliced off, one clean cut like a guillotine. There had been so much blood. No one had said if she’d survived and Taffyta was afraid to ask.

And then Minty came in, looking sick. “What’s wrong?” Rancis asked, standing up and going to her.

She looked from Candlehead to Taffyta, and then she said in a small voice, “It happened again.”

After that, Taffyta hadn’t wanted to stay. She’d started thinking—about how nine years ago she’d gone to _Extreme EZ Living 2_ with a virus named Malcolm, hoping to forget all her problems, thinking that the only way to fix anything was to go Turbo and leave her old life behind her. She’d been so _stupid_. It had almost cost her her life. If King Candy hadn’t been imprisoned in the fungeon—if he hadn’t found out that she was sick and demanded that Vanellope let him help her—

But even though he’d cured her, the virus had spread to the rest of the game. She could still remember the feeling, the horrible vibration in the air that had echoed deep in her code as a gaping hole had opened up in the stadium, swallowing everything and spewing glitchy energy.

And now it was happening again. What if she was to blame somehow? Or what if—what if what she’d had couldn’t ever really be cured? What if everyone just _thought_ she was better, but it was in there, lurking, waiting for something to trigger it?

When she got home, the house was empty. A feeling went through her that she didn’t have the strength to examine, some sort of contradictory mix of relief and sadness. She’d left Rancis’s house because she didn’t want to talk about how she felt, but at the same time, she felt like if she didn’t talk about it, the virus was going to come straight out of her right now. If she didn’t put words to her fear, her fear would take on a life of its own.

The problem was, she needed the right person to talk to about it. And he wasn’t there.

She tried to eat. Nope. No way. She took one look at the leftover strawberry soup in the refrigerator and felt her stomach turn over and her gorge rise halfway up her throat. She tried working on her coding, picking up the terminal that she used to practice on, but her eyes wouldn’t focus on anything. Everything on the screen jumbled together in blurry, squiggly lines, and she had to put it aside. She thought about working on Pink Lightning but it was getting dark, and suddenly, she didn’t want to traverse the distance from the house to the garage in the deepening twilight.

Stupid. There was nothing in the dark waiting to get her. The monsters were inside them, in their code, where you’d never see them jump out at you until it was much too late.

In the end, she turned the lamp on in the living room and sat next to it on the floor, leaning against the couch. King Candy found her like that when he came home.

“Hey,” he said, giving her a concerned look. “Did I just walk into you having a moment?”

She’d been staring at her feet, but at this, she raised her eyes to meet his. “It’s been kind of like, a long series of moments. Did you hear about _Altered Beast_?”

“Just now. You know, no one ever seems to think to tell me these things, is it because I got two games unplugged? Do people think I won’t care? Do they think I’m, I don’t know, _involved_ somehow? It’s sort of flattering, I guessth, the whole evil genius thing.” He paused and shrugged. “I mean, not that I’m going to argue if people want to call me a genius, I don’t know if I’d go that far, but, you know, I’m pretty smart, and…” He trailed off as he looked more closely at her face. Understanding flickered in his eyes. “Oh,” he said. “You’re worried about something.”

Looking back to her shoes—there was a scuff on them that she needed to clean off, it ruined the perfection of her look, and Taffyta didn’t like appearing anything less than perfect. “Yeah. About us getting unplugged.”

“Listen,” he said, still standing in front of the door, “you know there’s security on our code vault, security that other games don’t have—”

Glancing back up at him, she said, “Yeah, and I _also_ know that you and I got around that security pretty easily that time that we were going to mess with the roster randomizer’s code. If someone wanted to get into the code vault really bad, they could.”

For a second, he didn’t seem like he had a good response to this. But then, he waved a dismissive hand and said, “You know, you’re discounting my genius. I know I just said I _wasn’t_ a genius, but that was—hoo-hoo—well that was modesty, really—”

Taffyta drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, staring at the floor and feeling sick. “It might be us,” she said. “Who’s to say we won’t be next? _I_ had a virus, I brought it back, what if it’s still in my code—”

Without hesitation, he crossed the room and knelt in front of her. All trace of his lightheartedness had been wiped clear. His eyes flashed with an emotion that she couldn’t read, something fierce and intense. “It’sth not,” he said. “I took care of it, Taffyta. I _swear_ to you, I’d never leave anything that could hurt you in your code.” He held her gaze. “Have you ever, _ever_ felt like anything was wrong? Like you were sick?”

His seriousness calmed her down, but she still had to take several deep breaths. It had been nine years since she’d brought the virus back from _Extreme EZ Living 2_ , nine years since he’d fixed her code and started himself on—well, it sounded pretty corny, but his journey towards redemption. And as she thought about his question, she had to concede that no, she hadn’t ever felt anything _wrong_ in her code. It hadn’t ever felt like—like some kind of lurking toxin in the binary that made her who she was. It was all just worries and vague uneasiness.

She shook her head. “I trust you, it’s not that—”

He didn’t move. “Even if you didn’t. Listen, no one’sth better at coding in this arcade than me. No one even comes _close_. And next to coding myself into this game, I have to say, fixing _your_ code’s the most impressive thing I’ve ever done.”

With a small smile, she said, “Careful, I might start thinking you’re cocky.”

He grinned. “Isn’t that one of my best qualities?”

She giggled, starting to relax. Maybe none of this had anything to do with her. Maybe _Sugar Rush_ really was safe. Maybe it was all just a nasty coincidence. A couple games had gotten infected—after all, they were old, and Litwak wasn’t the most tech savvy guy around. It was easy to imagine how that could have happened. Yeah. It had nothing to do with her.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. King Candy patted her on the knee and bounced to his feet. When he swung the door open, Surge Protector was standing on the other side, clipboard held at the ready, as always. Taffyta got to her feet and went to stand next to King Candy in the doorway. “Oh good,” Surge said. “You’re both here.” He noted something on his clipboard and said, “I’m here to inform the two of you that a full arcade council session has been called. Unless there are any objections, as the leader of your game, Vanellope will be representing your interests.”

“I object,” King Candy said.

“Overruled,” Surge said, sounding bored.

Taffyta put her hands on her hips. The mere mention of Vanellope was enough to push her fear into the background. It was almost therapeutic. Huh, maybe she should thank Vanellope for enraging her so much. Yeah right. Sure. Maybe after she finally left. She was still hanging around, taking King Candy’s spot on the roster and walking around like she owned the place. Which, Taffyta guessed, she did, but still. “ _Excuse_ me? Why is _Vanellope_ representing us? She doesn’t even _live_ here. What if she hadn’t been around when you called the council session, who would have been there from _Sugar Rush_ then?”

Surge looked down at her flatly. “Luckily, that’s a moot point.”

With an derisive scoff, Taffyta said, “Oh, okay, so let’s just keep ignoring the fact that Vanellope’s gone for good and she’s never gonna come back, but for some reason she’s still president and all the decisions that get made about _Sugar Rush_ go through her—”

“Are you done?” Surge interrupted.

She glared at him. “No!”

He sighed through his nose and adjusted his glasses. “Sorry to interrupt the tirade, then, but I still have to visit six other games before the session tonight. Vanellope will be representing _Sugar Rush’s_ interests, but I want you there as well, Miss Muttonfudge.”

“Huh?” All of Taffyta’s anger dissipated, replaced by confusion. “ _Me?_ Why?”

Surge tucked his clipboard under his arm and gave her a direct look. “Because I believe you have relevant information.”

Her fear came rushing back. “Why would I…?”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “I believe you know Malcolm?”

King Candy sniffed. “The arcade’s resident malware scum.”

Taffyta’s eyes narrowed too as she watched Surge. “Yeah. I know him.”

This was…kind of an understatement. Malcolm was the one who’d given Taffyta the virus in the first place all those years ago. They’d met at _Tapper’s_ and he’d pegged her for a sucker right away, luring her to _Extreme EZ Living 2_ , a game on Litwak’s laptop. There, he’d drugged her under the pretense of helping her to forget her problems, and she’d unwittingly carried the virus back to _Sugar Rush_.

Surge didn’t blink. “The last time I spoke with him—”

“Tried and failed to arrest him,” King Candy muttered.

No reaction from Surge. “—he told me that if anything unpleasant were to happen in the arcade, I’d have Taffyta Muttonfudge to thank.”

Taffyta felt like someone had thrown a jawbreaker into her stomach. “W-what?” she said, taking a step back.

He pulled a piece of paper off his clipboard and handed it to her, but her eyes wouldn’t read any of the words on it. “I’m hoping you can clear up what he meant by that.” When Taffyta just stared at him, he made a note on his clipboard. “I need you to tell me if you’ll be there or not. It’s tonight at four.” She kept staring wordlessly, her eyes wide, and Surge’s gaze slid to King Candy. “Is she going to answer?” he asked.

King Candy put a hand on Taffyta’s shoulder, which she barely felt. “Aw, am I not invited to your little council meeting?”

Giving King Candy a flat look, Surge said, “For once, you don’t have anything to do with the latest arcade-wide catastrophe.”

“Hey, I resent that,” he said. “There’ve been _plenty_ of debacles I haven’t been involved in. Okay, so maybe not _plenty_.” He stopped and thought about it. “But—some. Maybe ‘some’ is the better word.”

Finally, Taffyta forced her voice out. It didn’t even sound like her as she said, “I’ll be there.”

Surge looked at her and seemed to finally take in her bloodless face and wide eyes. A flash of discomfort crossed his face. “Or…you’ll…be square,” he said, his smile weak.

“Oh, Surge,” King Candy sighed. “Was that a joke? Just go.”

“I—”

King Candy kicked the door shut in his face. Then, he turned to Taffyta—or at least, he turned to where Taffyta had been a second ago, since she’d wandered into the kitchen. She stared around the room without seeing it, only turning around when she heard King Candy’s footsteps behind her.

“It’s my fault,” she said, her voice seeming to come from a long way away. “Those games got unplugged because of me. Malcolm’s getting revenge and he’s doing it by getting one game after another unplugged, and we’re gonna be next, we’re going to get unplugged for good and it’s going to be _my fault—_ ”

Her eyes filled with tears and sobs made her throat hitch and spasm, but something was sitting on her chest keeping her from breathing, let alone crying, and she’d known, just _known_ that somehow she was to blame but she’d never imagined that it was this bad, this horrible, and—

“Taff—”

The tears didn’t stop and his features blurred as her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps. “How’m I supposed to—I killed those people—”

King Candy put his hands on either side of her face and stared into her eyes. “Taffyta. Listen to me.” His hands were warm, a physical point of contact to anchor herself, and her gasping breathing calmed. Each one of his fingertips felt like a tether to sanity. If she was responsible for killing those people, she didn’t know how she’d live with herself. Not here. She couldn’t look anyone in the face ever again; would she have to go to the internet? Change her name? Hide for the rest of forever?

_Stop_. Her thoughts were spiraling out of control again and she just concentrated on King Candy’s eyes. He was holding her gaze, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration, as though by sheer force of will he could keep her from losing it.

“You didn’t kill those charactersth,” he said. “Malcolm killed them. You _know_ that, Taffyta. You know him.”

She swallowed. “You heard what Surge said. If anything bad happened in the arcade—”

“Oh, pfft, sure.” His hands were still cupping her face. “Now how about this—you tell _me_ , what’s the one thing you know Malcolm loves more than anything else?”

Wetting her lips, she said, “Messing with people.”

“Exactly.” When she dropped her gaze from his, he ducked his head so he could meet her eyes again. “He found his way here back when malware just existed to screw with people.” His gaze was insistent, the kind of thing you couldn’t code or fake, and she wanted to hug him for trying so hard. “He hasn’t had any noticeable character growth that I can see. He doesn’t _need_ a reason to infect games and get them unplugged. That’sth just what he _does_.”

Taffyta breathed deeply and forced herself to ask, “Then why would he say it’s because of me? I know you’re trying to make me feel better but you don’t have to—to like, lie to me.”

There was a flash of something in his eyes. Was it sadness? Regret? “I’m not lying to you, Taff.” One of his hands moved, tucking her hair behind her ear. Then, he froze, almost like he hadn’t realized what he was doing, and finally put his hands back at his sides. “I wouldn’t—I mean, I guess I did—well—look.” He drew in a deep breath, obviously flustered, though Taffyta was baffled about why. “Think about it. He got to _you_ too. He didn’t just get those gamesth unplugged and ruin those characters’ lives. He’s screwing with you. This is exactly what he wants.”

She put her hands over her face and said in a muffled voice, “It’s working.”

His fingers closed around her wrists and he gently pulled at her hands. His eyes were warm and reassuring and at the same time, filled with concern for her. Why couldn’t the rest of the arcade see him this way? Why couldn’t he _show_ the rest of the arcade that he could be this way? “You know we’ll figure this out, right? Listen, we might not even have to figure it out ourselves, Surge will have his little council, and he’ll come up with something—wait, what am I saying, _Surge_ will come up with something?” He gave her a hesitant smile, obviously hoping to draw one out of her in return. “Okay, so maybe we’ll be the onesth figuring it out after all.”

“‘We’ aren’t going to figure anything out at all,” Taffyta said. “You heard Surge, I’m the only one that’s supposed to come.”

“Well, I think I can clear my calendar for the rest of the night. You know, I really love watching local government in action.”

Normally this would have made her smile, but now she just shook her head. “You shouldn’t come,” she said miserably, her stomach twisted into a tight knot. What if she got, like, banished or something? What if she wasn’t allowed to stay in Litwak’s? What if—what if they _made_ her go to the internet? That would be even worse than deciding to go there herself. She sucked in a deep breath. _Don’t cry._

King Candy looked at her, his eyes flicking from her clenched jaw to her balled fists, and said, “Oh, an arcade council sounds _exactly_ like the sort of thing I need to spice up my evening.”

Her shoulders hunched with stress and misery. “You weren’t really invited,” she said, even though the truth was that she wanted him to come. Badly. He wouldn’t be much defense if the rest of the arcade wanted to do something really bad to her, but at least she wouldn’t be alone.

Waving a hand, he said, “I’m sure they can find an extra chair.”

She twisted her fingers together. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Meeting her eyes, he said, “And _I_ don’t want you to feel like the mob’s coming for you. Well, at least, I don’t want you to feel like there’s no one on your side if it does.”

There was just the barest prickle of tears behind her eyes. He had no idea how he made her feel or how much what he’d just said meant to her. She was afraid she loved him, and the thought terrified her because she didn’t know what it meant—for her, for him, for them. The moment passed and she tried to breathe. Pressing her lips together for a second, she said, “Thanks.”

He waved a hand. “It’s the least I can do. Honestly—it really is, considering everything you’ve done for me for the past nine yearsth.”

She didn’t know what to say that. Whenever he made comments like this, she was always at a loss for words. There hadn’t been any choice to do what she had. He’d needed her.

Instead of answering, she looked down at the paper Surge had given her, taking in the time and place of the council session. _Pac-Man_ , 4 AM. As she was staring at it, King Candy gently pulled it from her hands. “Hey, Taff,” he said. “Why don’t you take a nap? You haven’t slept in daysth, right?” When she shrugged, he said, “It would do you good.”

“You should talk,” she said, trying to smile. It didn’t really work. Before they’d ended up as roommates, she’d never realized how little he slept. He prowled around at all hours of the night and he’d scared the sugar out of her on more than one occasion when she’d come downstairs for a glass of chocolate milk or soda and found him sitting in total darkness. His eyes always seemed to give off a faint yellow shine in those moments, as though in the dark he reverted to an earlier life. Taffyta had never come out and asked him why he’d chosen to live as King Candy rather than Turbo, but this seemed to be an essential piece of it that she couldn’t put into words.

When he just kept looking at her, an eyebrow raised, she blew a breath out in a puff of air. “Fine. But wake me up so I have time to get ready.” Even though she doubted she’d actually fall asleep, it would figure that she’d drift off and not have time to do her makeup. It felt like she was being put on trial; she needed to make sure she looked good.

He looked like he wanted to say something to this, but he just nodded, holding the folded letter in his hands. As she trudged up the stairs to go to bed, she could feel his eyes on her, but he remained silent.

And Taffyta didn’t sleep. Not really. Every time she drifted off into a fog of exhaustion, Malcolm’s leering face appeared. Her mind would yank her back into consciousness before anything more could happen. But then, it was like all the safeties switched off, like the guardrails broke, and her brain couldn’t put the brakes on the nightmare. Malcolm was there and she couldn’t fight him off as he grabbed at her and pulled her towards a glitchy chasm that spit green cracks of energy. “What’s the matter, Blondie?” he laughed as she resisted him. “Don’t you get it? You can’t get rid of me. I’m _always with you_.”

She screamed as he pulled her into the pit with him, his arms wrapping around her and then through her body, his hands blades cutting through her until she was writhing, impaled by him, and he laughed and laughed as the roiling, glitching binary below hurtled upward towards them as they simultaneously fell into it.

With a gasp, Taffyta sat bolt upright in bed. Her whole body was covered in cold, slick sweat, her heart was pounding, and her breath was coming in short, sharp bursts. She was right on the edge of hyperventilating.

Then there was a knock on the door and King Candy’s voice said, “Taff? It’s three.”

She swung her legs out of bed, opened the door, and threw her arms around him, willing herself not to shake. He didn’t ask her what was wrong. His arms went around her and he held onto her until she wiped her eyes and went back into her room to get ready.


	7. Chapter 7

There’d been a time when every game in the arcade had been fitted with an alarm containing a piece of King Candy’s code, so that if he tried to game-jump, everyone would know immediately. Many of the games in Litwak’s had turned theirs off over the years. King Candy called it complacency and Taffyta usually reminded him that ‘trust’ was the nicer word. In the first few years of his—probation? Reformation?—it had been hard to get other games to allow him to visit, but gradually, as people saw him visit _Fix-It Felix, Jr._ , or _Tapper_ , or _BurgerTime_ , and leave without taking over, there was a grudging acknowledgement that maybe it was okay to let him in once in awhile.

But there had been a few times that no one had remembered to turn the alarms off, and that had resulted in several tense stand-offs with what he’d mockingly dubbed the Anti-Turbo Brigade (the group of characters that had been specially trained to deal with him in the event that he game-jumped). Every time it happened, he looked like a cornered animal, glitching uncontrollably, back against the wall and surrounded by the most heavily armed people in the arcade. Taffyta invariably sobbed and eventually someone from the game would come out and explain that everything was fine, they’d given him permission to come in, though when they said it they always looked like they regretted that decision. There they’d been, hoping Turbo wouldn’t cause trouble for them, and that was exactly what he’d ended up doing.

So there was always a hesitation on his part when they crossed the threshold from Game Central Station into another game’s outlet, always that moment of caution and dread. It was funny, because she’d never thought of him as cautious before _Sugar Rush_ had reset. As an adult, she’d gained a deeper appreciation for the fact that he was more cautious than she’d ever known—until he wasn’t. He had no in-between. Everything was all or nothing with him. Hero or villain. King or nobody. Loved or reviled.

When he paused at the entrance to _Pac-Man_ , she gave him an encouraging smile, and he snorted at himself. “Hoohoohoo, you’d think I’d get over that.”

“Get over what?” she said, figuring that it wouldn’t hurt to let him have his pride on this one.

The look he gave her said very clearly that he knew what she was doing, but he dropped it as they boarded the Pac-Manorail. The other characters on the train refused to ride in the same car as them, as usual. The muttering and whispering was pretty typical, too, though Taffyta felt her heart sink at how much of it was directed at her. Did everyone already know what Malcolm had said? Had they all heard that everything was her fault?

The featureless blue walls of _Pac-Mac_ creeped her out more than usual. She would have liked to blame her nightmare, but the closer they got to the meeting room, the more terrified she became that something horrible was going to happen. When they arrived, Surge looked surprised for a second, then recovered and held out a hand to stop them from entering. “I thought I said you didn’t need to come,” he said to King Candy.

“Well, you did, technically,” King Candy replied, hooking a thumb into one of the lapels of his jacket. “But you didn’t say I _couldn’t_ come.”

There was a frustrated expression on Surge’s face. “Look, I know you love causing trouble, but this isn’t the time. People are scared. The last thing they need is _you_ stirring the pot even more.”

Holding up his hands, King Candy said, “I’m not here to cause trouble. Listen, Surge, if we’re going to talk about Malcolm, who here knowsth more about him than me? You know, you all _love_ to call me a virus—I’m not, by the way, well, I mean, except for that unfortunate incident with the Cy-Bug—” He shuddered and glitched a little. ‘That unfortunate incident’ had left him with his glitch, mostly controllable now, but a constant reminder of the permanent damage his code had taken when the Cy-Bug had eaten him. “—Anyway, game-jumper I may be, but _virus_ I’m not. But still, no one knows more about them than I do.”

Surge gave him a dubious look and Taffyta realized her hands were clenched so tightly that she couldn’t feel her fingers. With effort, she relaxed them and said, “C’mon, Surge. It’s not like he had anything to do with—with the games getting unplugged.” _That was me_ she almost added, feeling a crazy urge to laugh.

Princess Peach and Ms. Pac-Man arrived and Surge made two check marks on his clipboard. Then, he looked back up. Disappointment flashed across his face, like he’d been hoping King Candy would disappear while he was checking off names. Finally, with a sigh through his nose, Surge said, “Fine. But if you start causing problems, I’m throwing you straight out, mister.”

A glint of wicked amusement flickered in King Candy’s eyes, but he just held up two fingers and said, “Scout’s honor.”

Surge made a defeated motion with his hand and said, “Go sit with Vanellope.”

To his credit, King Candy didn’t respond to this. As the two of them took a seat at the front of the room, Taffyta between him and Vanellope, their MIA president managed to limit her reaction to a faint look of distaste. Taffyta’s chair squeaked as she sat back. Was it her imagination, or were people glaring at her as they walked in?

“Hey,” Vanellope said, her tone unusually quiet. Taffyta looked at her, feeling herself preparing to lash out. But Vanellope punched her shoulder lightly and said, “Don’t worry, okay? I’ve got your back.”

So _she_ obviously knew why Taffyta was there. Still, hearing Vanellope say this was a nice surprise. Taffyta swallowed hard, then choked as she tried to speak. Clearing her throat, she finally managed, “Thanks.”

With a shrug, Vanellope said, “That’s what friends are for, right?”

_Were_ they still friends, though? For a long time, Taffyta hadn’t felt like they were.

Before she was able to dwell too much on it, Surge walked to the front of the room, looking expectantly over the gathered crowd. Slowly, everyone grew quiet. Taffyta hadn’t realized how loud it was until the noise was gone, and when the last mutter died down, she risked a glance over her shoulder. Big mistake. The room was packed full of characters from every game in the arcade and none of them looked happy. Well, duh. How stupid. Why would they look happy? Two games had been unplugged in twenty-four hours, and everyone was afraid theirs was going to be next.

Surge looked almost pleased to be the focus of so much undivided attention. “Thanks for coming, everyone,” he said. “I know it was short notice.”

“I don’t think any of us mind that,” Tapper said. “This is an emergency.”

There were murmurs of agreement and Surge said, “I think we can come to order, then. So, we all know the reason for this meeting: _Hoop Jamz_ and _Altered Beast_ were both unplugged with minimal warning. They both apparently experienced the same phenomena prior to being unplugged: a pit appearing in the ground that was green in color and got larger and larger.”

“Don’t forget those weird lightning bolts!” the centurion from _Altered Beast_ yelled from the back of the room.

“Oh, right.” Surge squinted at his clipboard. “Yes, and according to witnesses, some sort of energy was being discharged from the pit.”

He made it sound so clinical. That may have been what technically happened when this particular virus infected your game, but it wasn’t really what _happened_. Taffyta remembered the unsettling, code-deep hum that had pervaded _Sugar Rush_ , bringing all the ambient noise in the game to an unnatural halt. The sky had turned red and binary had crackled at its edges as the game had ripped itself open, and she’d felt the answering echo of wrongness in herself, in her own code. Could she feel it twinging now, or was she imagining things?

“We’re here to discuss what action should be taken to prevent any other games from being unplugged,” Surge went on.

From the row behind the _Sugar Rush_ contingent, someone said in a testy voice, “How can we do anything to _prevent_ it when we don’t know what caused it in the first place?”

Taffyta didn’t need to turn around to know it was Gene. The two of them weren’t friends, to put it lightly. Gene hadn’t liked any of the _Sugar Rush_ racers anyway, had never liked Turbo, and hadn’t approved of Felix and Calhoun taking the racers in when their game had been unplugged. All of them had kind of hoped that with him and Sour Bill becoming such good friends, Gene would mellow out. No such luck. He was as big of a jerk as ever.

Then, Surge looked straight at her. She felt her stomach shrivel. “As it happens, we have someone here who has some experience with this particular virus,” he said.

The knot in her stomach loosened. Was that all he was going go say—?

“And,” Surge went on, “her name has come up in conjunction with what’s currently happening in the arcade.”

If possible, her insides contracted even more. Was she going to throw up or faint? Both King Candy and Vanellope were looking at her encouragingly, which was…really weird, actually, and for just a second she was seized again with the urge to laugh. The two of them caught sight of each other but Vanellope only wrinkled her nose, and King Candy confined his reaction to a twist around his mouth. Wow, she was really like, building bridges.

“Taffyta,” Surge said, “Do you mind telling us what you know about this?”

Was she supposed to stand up? Surge was looking at her expectantly. _Could_ she stand up? Putting her hands on either side of the chair, she pushed herself into a standing position. Her legs felt like jelly. She’d never been afraid of being in front of a crowd _ever_ , in her whole life. But this was the most terrifying thing she’d ever done. Everyone was staring at her and there was accusation in many of their eyes.

“Um,” she said. What was she supposed to say? She looked at Surge for help, but he just stared back at her, his face looking like he was in power-saving mode. Glancing down, she caught Vanellope’s eye. Vanellope gave her a slight nod, and with a deep breath, Taffyta turned to face the rest of the room and said, “I think…I think that the virus that was in _Hoop Jamz_ and _Altered Beast_ was the same one that I brought back from _Extreme EZ Living 2_ nine years ago.”

Athena Asamiya, from _SNK Heroines_ , gasped. “ _You_ infected your game?”

“It was an accident!” Taffyta said, hearing the note of desperation in her voice. _Calm down_. “I met this guy. Malcolm. He lied to me and gave me this green powder to swallow. He told me it would—” She faltered. Suddenly it occurred to her that she’d never actually told King Candy _why_ she’d gone Turbo all those years ago and ended up in _Extreme EZ Living_. Sure, it had been because Vanellope’s roster randomizer hadn’t been choosing her, but she never would have been so upset without everything _else_ that had happened. Finding out that King Candy was actually Turbo, that he’d taken over their game, locked up their memories. Lied to all of them for fifteen years. Taffyta had been convinced that their friendship had been nothing but a sham, another layer of manipulation and lies to add to his cover.

There was muttering in the room as her silence stretched too long. “He told you what?” Peter Pepper said. Taffyta made a mental note not to visit _BurgerTime_ again if he was going to be rude.

She didn’t look at King Candy. “He told it would make me forget my problems,” she said.

Someone scoffed, and while she was trying to spot who it was, she heard someone else say, “She was the one _causing_ problems, wasn’t she?”

Okay, now they were just being _jerks_. She was here to try to help. Tilting her chin up imperiously, she said, “Hey, do you want to hear this or not? Because last time I checked, I was the last one here to get infected by Malcolm and actually survive it. So you might wanna think about listening to me.”

The room fell silent again. Taffyta drew a breath and went on, “I got the virus, but I wasn’t the target. I was just a carrier. He was trying to take _Sugar Rush_ out.”

Tapper put a hand up and asked, “Why?”

With a shrug, Taffyta said, “Because I was there. I was an easy mark. He goes after games with vulnerabilities.”

Suddenly, her blood ran cold. Games with vulnerabilities. All this time she’d been thinking it was her, that _she_ was the one that made _Sugar Rush_ open to attack. But she’d just remembered that their game had one obvious weakness, and even worse, Malcolm knew exactly what it was.

“Miss Muttonfudge,” Surge said, making her start. “Like I said to you, Malcolm implied that you have something to do with the unpluggings.”

There was a collective gasp in the room and King Candy demanded, “What’s _wrong_ with you? You know she doesn’t and you didn’t need to say that in front of the rest of them.”

“Yeah, seriously, Surge,” Vanellope muttered. That actually stunned Taffyta into speechlessness. Had she ever heard the two of them agree on anything in her entire life?

When she turned around to look at Surge, he looked surprised at everyone’s response. “ _Obviously_ she doesn’t have anything to do with it,” he said, like _they_ were all the idiots for thinking he’d meant otherwise. “But Malcolm said it to me, and I want to know why.”

Oh god. She could say that she didn’t know and it wouldn’t necessarily be a _lie_. Except the thing was, she was pretty sure she knew exactly what Malcolm would have been referring to, and it was the same reason that he knew _Sugar Rush_ had a vulnerability.

When the game had been upgraded two years earlier and King Candy’s code had been nearly wiped out of it, Taffyta had needed a part from Malcolm. She’d managed to repair the damage done to her friend by the upgrade, but the company that owned _Sugar Rush_ planned on releasing updates, which would have destroyed King Candy’s code all over again. In fact, there had been a timer counting down to the next update the entire time she’d been fixing his code. So she’d made a deal with Malcolm—he’d give her the part in exchange for five thousand coins and a date.

She’d agreed to it. What else could she have done? Without the part, King Candy would have died. Malcolm had wanted to go to the internet with her, but as soon as she had the part, she’d shoved him into the Wi-Fi portal and bolted. Hey, at least she’d paid him the money. But she could see how, maybe, _possibly,_ it would look like she’d double-crossed him. In her defense, he was super gross, she’d been half-convinced he was going to assault her, considering he’d already shown a willingness to violate her bodily autonomy by drugging her, and she hadn’t had time to go with him, anyway.

The part had worked, blocking off King Candy’s code from being damaged by any further updates. The problem was that it also blocked his code from being protected by any security patches. And because Malcolm had given her the part and known exactly why she needed it, he knew that too.

Licking her lips, she said, “I made a deal with him and I guess I kinda…went back on it?”

She steeled herself for the outraged yelling and accusations, but instead there was just some low murmuring. One of the basketball players from _Hoop Jamz_ looked thunderstruck. “We got unplugged because of a grudge that some guy has against her?” he demanded.

Like the thought didn’t make her sick to her stomach? After she’d reneged on her deal with Malcolm, she’d expected him to show up and get some kind of revenge. But he hadn’t, and as time had passed, she’d kind of…well, not forgotten about what had happened, exactly, but stopped thinking about it. It turned out Malcolm hadn’t forgotten. He’d just been biding his time.

Surge glanced at her and a flicker of pity flashed through his eyes. “That’s what he wants all of us to think, at least,” he said. Then, briskly, he went on, “Okay, fine, thank you, Miss Muttonfudge. You’re free to leave if you don’t want to stay for this whole meeting.”

For a second, she just stood there, staring at him. What? Really? That was _it?_ He’d made her go through all of that just to be summarily dismissed? “Yeah, I think I’ll stay, actually,” she said.

Surge shrugged and looked out over the room. “We need to figure out what to do about this situation,” he said. “I—” He looked at Taffyta. “You can sit down.”

“Oh.” Duh. Abruptly, she plopped back down in her chair, only realizing once she was safely out of the limelight how fast her heart was pounding. As it slowed, she glanced at King Candy, who smiled at her. It was amazing how much better his smile made her feel.

“I want to open up the floor to suggestions,” Surge was saying. “I can try to figure out a way to stop any viruses from getting into games, but it seems to me like the best thing to do is deal with Malcolm himself. Anything less is just kicking the can down the road.” He picked up his clipboard and clicked his pen open. “Anyone have any ideas?”

There was a long silence. Someone in the back of the room coughed and a chair creaked. Surge’s eyes scanned the room and there was a clatter from somewhere as someone dropped something.

Finally, Sonic cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him. He crossed one leg over the other and jiggled his foot. “Can we lock him up somewhere?”

There was a murmur of discussion at this suggestion, and then Ken said from the back row, “We should just kill him.”

Tapper shook his head. “Isn’t that kind of overboard?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Peach said, “I like Sonic’s idea.”

Biting her lip, Yuni from _DDR_ said, “We shouldn’t kill _anybody_.”

“That wasn’t my idea,” Sonic said.

Michael Hardy, one of the detectives from _Virtua Cop_ who Taffyta had once gone on an embarrassing date with, stood up. “We should have a full investigation first.”

His mustache twitching, Gene said, “Why don’t we just _ban_ him?”

At this, King Candy snorted and rolled his eyes. Surge rounded on him and said coldly, “Do you have something you want to add?”

King Candy raised his eyebrows and folded his hands in his lap. “You should hear yourselvesth. Lock him up? Ban him? Who exactly do you think you’re dealing with, here?” He twisted in his seat and flicked a dismissive wrist, saying, “Shockingly, Ken came closest, I don’t normally associate his type of muscle-bound physique with great intellect but you know, appearances can be deceiving and everything.”

“Come back here and say that to my face, you little—” 

Ignoring this, King Candy added, “Anyway, what was I saying?”

Meeting his eyes, Taffyta murmured, “Their suggestions were all bad?”

“Oh, hoo-hoo, right.” He touched her shoulder in thanks, a quick brush with his fingers, and went on, “Listen, you’re not going to get rid of Malcolm by serving him with a _restraining_ order, and you don’t kill him like you would one of us. He’s malware. A virus.” When he paused to look around at the assembled characters, there was complete silence. Every eye was on him. He could definitely command a room’s attention. Was that programmed into him? She had a feeling it had always been this way, even when he’d just been an 8-bit racer driving around an oval track all day, every day. When your game was that, well, boring, you had to have something else to draw them in, and he had the magnetism to do it.

Leaning back in his chair, he said, “You want to get rid of Malcolm, then you need to _eradicate_ him. Delete him. Rip out his code. That’sth the only way.”

In the seat next to Taffyta, Vanellope made a disgusted noise. “Big surprise, Turbutt’s talking about deleting people.”

He glared at her. “Well, you’re all going to vote on it, right? That’s how these things work? Democracy in action? If you don’t like my suggestion, feel free to come up with something better, glitch.” Chairs scraped on the floor as multiple characters got to their feet, looking like they maybe wanted to delete _him_. Taffyta caught the expression on Calhoun’s face and the way her hand was on the holster of her pistol. It made something sharp twist in her. While Felix and Ralph were, well, probably the closest thing to friends that King Candy had outside _Sugar Rush_ , Calhoun had never warmed to him.

Vanellope just rolled her eyes and ignored him. “ _Sugar Rush_ is getting regular security patches since it’s hooked up to the internet now, so at least we don’t have to worry about getting infected. We’ll do whatever we can to help.”

Taffyta wrinkled her nose. _We’ll do anything we can to help_. Like she wasn’t going to go running back to _Slaughter Race_ the first chance she got. More like the _rest_ of them would do anything they could to help.

Jiggling his foot, King Candy said, “That’sth not true. _Sugar Rush_ is vulnerable.”

Vanellope snapped her head around to look at him. Taffyta tried not to react to this but couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach. Part of her had hoped that somehow, she was wrong about that. But if he was admitting it here, she couldn’t pretend otherwise. He _was_ a vulnerability. Being locked off from updates and security patches meant a virus could use him to infect the rest of the game.

Surge held up a hand and, with some grumbling, everyone sat back down. His pen was poised over his clipboard as his eyes scanned the room, then settled on King Candy. He noted something and then said, “Okay, then. _Does_ anyone else have any suggestions?” Silence met this question.

Then, Gene spoke up. “I have a question for Turbo,” he said, not sounding happy about it.

King Candy turned in his seat and rested his arms on the back of his chair. “ _Do_ tell.”

Dislike twisted Gene’s face. His mustache twitched before he said, “How do we destroy Malcolm? He’s not part of a game and Game Central Station doesn’t have code. So I don’t see any way to do what you’re suggesting.”

There was a glint in King Candy’s eyes as he smiled slightly. “Just because _you’ve_ never seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

Looking irritated, Gene said, “Don’t be ridiculous. What are you talking about? Surge— _what_ is he talking about?”

But Surge was giving King Candy a penetrating look, and when King Candy turned back around to face the front of the room, there was a smug look on his face. Taffyta recognized it. He knew something that the rest of them wanted to know and he wasn’t just going to hand the information over. If he couldn’t make people like him, at least he’d make them pay attention to him.

“I’m not sure,” Surge finally said slowly. “But I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that nobody saw Turbo for ten years after he got _RoadBlasters_ and _TurboTime_ unplugged.”

Scowling, King Candy said, “You _love_ to bring that up.”

“It’s what _happened_.”

“You wanna debrief the rest of us on what the two of you are talking about?” Calhoun said.

Surge pointed his pen at King Candy. “You’re implying that there’s an area of Game Central Station that holds code.”

Raising an eyebrow, King Candy replied, “Why yes, I believe I am. I had to learn somewhere, you know?”

“And what? That’s where Malcolm lives?”

With a shrug, King Candy said, “I would think so. Who can say, really?”

Gene made a sound of frustration and said, “If he isn’t going to tell us anything, why is he even here? Surge, _you_ know Game Central Station better than anyone. You can kill Malcolm, or delete his code, or whatever Turbo wants to call it.”

King Candy crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair, watching Surge with one arched eyebrow. From behind them, Taffyta heard Calhoun’s body armor creak. Sonic coughed, and on Vanellope’s other side, Peach leaned forward expectantly.

“Actually,” Surge said, “I can’t.”

A quarter of the room demanded, “What?!” at the same time, while there were scattered sighs of exasperation and mutters of, “Of _course_ , it’s Surge, after all.” King Candy snapped and then cocked a finger at Surge, and Gene snapped, “Oh, for god’s sake, why _not?_ ”

Surge looked both resigned and defensive at the same time. “I’m a surge _protector_ ,” he said. “I can’t kill anyone. That’s not how I’m built.”

“I still don’t think we should kill him at all!” Peach said.

“Pretty naïve for someone who spends every day getting kidnapped,” Calhoun said, prompting Peach to turn around and glare at her.

His voice getting louder, Gene said, “Well, if Surge isn’t going to go kill him, then who _is?_ ”

Rolling her eyes, Yuni said, “Why don’t you go, Gene?”

With a sputtery sound, he replied, “I can’t possibly leave _Fix-It Felix Jr.—_ ”

“ _Someone_ has to do it!” yelled a voice from the back of the room, but Taffyta couldn’t identify it as everyone started talking at once, arguing about who should go or whether or not anyone should go at all. “—said he can figure out a way to stop it, can’t we just wait?”

“—And how do we keep viruses out in the meantime, post guards at every game—?”

“—can’t just abandon my game and go hunting for some creep—”

“—go to the internet, if we’re all going to get unplugged we can jump ship now—”

Something settled in Taffyta’s chest, a steady, cold, gray certainty. She got to her feet slowly. Nobody noticed, because they were too busy arguing with each other. Or maybe nobody cared. After all, who was she? She wasn’t the prettiest racer, she wasn’t the smartest, but she might have been the meanest. She was a bully, a troublemaker—the girl who idolized Turbo. Why would anyone pay attention to her?

“I’ll do it,” she said.


	8. Chapter 8

Okay, so it wasn’t true that no one had been paying attention to her. One person was, and he’d watched Taffyta stand without saying a word, looking like he knew exactly what she was going to do. The expression on King Candy’s face wasn’t happy, so Taffyta looked away from him.

The room fell silent slowly as people realized what she’d said. Vanellope was staring at her in surprise, while Calhoun looked downright astonished. Peach’s mouth was a round little O and Michael Hardy was making eye contact with her for the first time since they’d gone out.

In the silence, Surge’s pen click seemed louder than normal. “You don’t know where to go,” was all he said.

Putting her hands on her hips, she said, “Big deal. I’ll get directions.” This was one hundred percent bravado. Her heart was pounding. How the hell was she going to delete Malcolm? She’d never done anything like that before—King Candy, maybe cognizant of his own failings, had only taught her to repair, build, and create with code.

There was a jingle next to her, and then King Candy was standing at her side. “Taffyta doesn’t know the way, but I do,” he said.

There was scattered muttering in the room. She leaned towards him and whispered, “You don’t have to come.”

A crooked smile crept up his face and he said, “What, and miss all the fun?”

Surge noted something on his clipboard, then said, “Well, let’s take a vote on it. All those in favor of Miss Muttonfudge and Turbo destroying Malcolm’s code?” Most hands in the room went up, though notably, Vanellope’s and Calhoun’s weren’t among them. After scanning the room for half a second, Surge said, “That seems pretty decisive. I think we can bring this session to a close, unless anyone has anything else to add?”

“When are you leaving?” a character from _Space Invaders_ yelled.

Surge ignored this. “Good. Thanks for coming, folks. I’ll let you get back to what’s left of your evenings.”

There was a sudden cacophony as chairs scraped on the floor. Everyone began talking at once as they filed out of the room. A few rows back, Taffyta saw a character from _Crazy Taxi_ and one from _Finish Line_ glance at the front of the room. “Hey,” one of them said, “if we’re lucky, this will kill two birds with one stone. Maybe we’ll be able to stop worrying about Turbo.”

The other one laughed. “Don’t you mean _three_ birds with one stone? I wouldn’t mind never seeing his girlfriend again, either.”

Her chest tightened, but really, did she expect anything else? There was no point in getting upset. Turning towards King Candy, she said, “I figured you’d tell me not to go.”

He straightened his tailcoat and raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, I thought about it, if you want to know the truth, but then I also thought, look, all that’sth going to happen is we’re going to make a scene, and maybe someone says something they don’t mean, and in the end what’s it going to get us? You’re still going to go. I can’t stop you.” He shrugged. “See? _Somewhere_ along the line, I got used to you being an adult.”

“Ahem.” Taffyta whirled around to face Vanellope. Honestly, she’d kind of forgotten the other woman was there. There was a pensive look on her face as she studied Taffyta. “Hey, are you sure about this? Like, have you really thought about it? You could get KOed, Taff.”

_KOed_. That wasn’t something any of them ever said. She’d picked that up from living online. “Did you think about it before you went to the internet?” Taffyta asked. When Vanellope just made an unintelligible noise, Taffyta said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought. This is my fault, and I’m going to fix it.”

If Vanellope understood the parallel Taffyta was drawing, she didn’t show it. Big surprise. Vanellope had never, not once, acknowledged the fact that she was the one who’d gotten _Sugar Rush_ unplugged in the first place. Not like Ralph. _Ralph_ had apologized—one time complete with blubbering tears, though that had probably been in large part due to the fact that he’d been drunker than she’d ever seen anyone. Though to be fair, Taffyta had been pretty drunk herself. They all had been—Ralph, Felix, King Candy, and her, as the three of them had reminisced about the old days and she’d sat back and listened. And drank, obviously. Ralph had gotten emotional, Felix had started singing, and King Candy had talked freely and happily about _TurboTime_ , glitching intermittently to Turbo. Taffyta had gotten sick on the way back to _Sugar Rush_ and King Candy had rubbed her shoulders while she vomited into a garbage can in Game Central Station.

“I mean, I wasn’t going to try to stop you,” Vanellope said. She glanced at King Candy, made a face, and left.

As Surge walked past them, he said, “You two are leaving soon, right?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before he walked out the door. King Candy snorted. “You know, I almost get the sense he doesn’t think we can do it. Oh well.” Looking at her, he said, “Shall we?”

“Excuse me, young lady, but you’re not going anywhere.”

Taffyta jumped and whirled to face Calhoun, who she hadn’t known was still there. She had her hands on her hips and her very best Disapproving Mom look on her face. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?” Calhoun demanded. “This sounds like you making a decision without planning for any SNAFUs.”

The truth, of course, was no, she didn’t have any idea what she was getting into. But she already felt her hackles rising. “Yeah. Obviously.”

Calhoun shook her head. “Vanellope’s right. You could be killed.”

Oh, of course, _Vanellope_ was right. Bristling, she shot back, “I’m not stupid. I know that.”

“No one ever said you were stupid,” Calhoun said, her voice getting louder, like she hadn’t learned years ago that Taffyta could shout her down any day.

Balling her fists, Taffyta said, “Fine, whatever, you don’t think I’m stupid, you think I’m a child. Like I can’t figure stuff out on my own and need my hand held. Hey, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m _not_ a kid anymore. I can make my own choices. And I’m going to find Malcolm, whether you want me to or not.”

Calhoun took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them, worry was creeping in around their corners. “I know you’re not a child. But this is too much, Taffyta. You’ve never done anything like this. You _don’t_ have any idea. You don’t know where you’re going— _I_ don’t know where you’re going—”

Her tone alarmed Taffyta. It hadn’t occurred to her to be scared of what she’d volunteered for, but the fact that everyone else seemed to think she’d undertaken such a dangerous task was starting to freak her out. “Tamora—”

Holding up a hand to stop her, Calhoun said in a no-nonsense tone, “It’s too dangerous. I don’t want you going alone.”

“I won’t be alone,” she sighed.

Calhoun eyed King Candy. “I don’t want you going with anyone I don’t trust, and I don’t trust _him_.” To his credit, King Candy remained quiet, only narrowing his eyes as Calhoun jabbed a finger in his direction. Crossing her arms over her chest, Calhoun said, “I’ll go with you. You’re going to need some firepower.”

“Yeah, but Tamora, you can’t leave _Hero’s Duty_ for however long it’s going to take—” Taffyta objected.

“Then I’ll send Kohut,” she said.

At this, King Candy held up a hand. Calhoun looked at him. “Listen, Sergeant, I appreciate your concern for Taffyta, and obviously—well, not obviously to you, I guessth, considering you just said you don’t trust me—but look, obviously it’s one of the _very_ few things we have in common.” Calhoun’s lips thinned but she didn’t say anything. Taffyta was just impressed with the way that he’d said ‘Sergeant’—completely sincerely and respectfully, without a hint of sarcasm. It wasn’t a first for him, but it was pretty close. He went on, “The thing is, this situation doesn’t exactly call for _firepower_. It’s going to need—well, it’s not that your particular skillset isn’t impressive, but it’s not the right one this time. And you may not trust me, but I’m the only one here who understands what it’s going to take to—hoo-hoo, well, take Malcolm out.”

Glaring at him, Calhoun said, “At least, so _you_ say. I’m not interested in sending Taffyta off on her own without protection.”

Taffyta put her hands on her hips and tried to remember that she was the closest thing to a daughter Calhoun had—and that of all the racers, it was the two of them that had connected the most. Of course she was protective. But Taffyta still didn’t like it. Breathing in through her nose to try to keep the irritation out of her tone, she said, “Hey, there’s no one _I_ trust more than him. Does what I think count for anything?”

Looking mildly contrite, Calhoun said, “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

There was a brief silence, and then King Candy said, “See, Sergeant? The one thing we have in common.”

The earnestness on his face was unusual, and Calhoun’s glare eased. Looking away from him, she knelt in front of Taffyta and said, “I guess you have to let them leave the nest sometime. You take care of yourself, got it? I want you coming back in one piece.”

“I will,” Taffyta said. “I’ll be safe.” The reality was that she had no idea at all if she’d be able to be safe or what they were going to face. Or, really, if she could promise that she’d come back in one piece at all. They were going into Malcolm’s territory, and she didn’t know what was down there.

Calhoun looked unconvinced, not that Taffyta could blame her. Reaching back, she unclipped her hand pistol’s holster and handed the whole thing to Taffyta. “Even if you don’t need firepower, it never hurts to have a little bit. Just in case.” With a short nod, Taffyta clipped the holster inside her jacket, feeling the heaviness of the blaster against her side. Then, on impulse, she gave Calhoun a tight hug. “Thanks, Tamora. And please don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”

Hugging her back tightly, Calhoun said, “You better be, little lady.”

With that, Calhoun left as well. Taffyta took a deep breath, turning to face King Candy, and said, “So, um, dumb question which I probably should have asked before, but now that I totally acted like I know what I’m doing…where exactly are we going?”

He smiled at her with a touch of grimness. “Nowhere nice. Are you ready to go now?”

“I don’t see much point in waiting.” She rolled her shoulders back, realizing how tense they were, and followed him out the doors. Had it only been a few days ago that they’d walked down this same glowing blue hallway? Her biggest problem _then_ had been that she had a crush on her best friend and no way to tell him. Now she was blaming herself for getting two games unplugged, regardless of what King Candy said, and she was about to track down a dangerous virus with a grudge against her. _And_ she still had the crush on her best friend. _Come on, Taffyta, it’s more than a crush and you know it._

They had to wait for the train, neither of them speaking and the station completely silent. Taffyta glanced at King Candy’s graffiti on the wall, jumping when he finally broke the silence. “We’re going where I used to live,” he said, his tone pensive. She looked at him, but he was staring into the distance. “Well—hoohoohoo—‘live’ is a strong word. We’re going where I survived.” Finally, he met her eyes. “Taff, there’sth stuff down there that…” But he stopped, furrowing his brow, and fidgeted his fingers, lacing and unlacing them. His throat jumped as he opened and closed his mouth a few times, before he finally said, “I’m actually, you know, sort of happy you’ve got that gun.”

_Down there?_ she almost asked, but figured she was going to find out soon enough. She felt for the gun, oddly comforted by its weight at her side. For the past three years, Calhoun had been taking her shooting in _Hero’s Duty_. It wasn’t exactly the sort of mother-daughter bonding that Taffyta ever would have expected, but it worked for them. And she was a great shot.

“Anyway.” He straightened his coat and said in a businesslike tone, “You’re not going to hear me say this too often—so I hope you’re listening—but I actually need to ask for someone’s help.”

“Whose?” Taffyta asked, as a ding in the blackness of the tunnel signaled the train’s approach.

He raised an eyebrow. “I need Ralph to wreck something for me.”

~ 

Ralph wasn’t hard to find. Well, Ralph was never really hard to find—he towered above just about everyone else in the arcade. But at that particular moment, he wasn’t hard to find because he was waiting for them, his arms crossed over his chest, outside the _Pac-Man_ outlet. “Oh no,” Taffyta sighed. “Not you too.” Ralph opened his mouth, but Taffyta jabbed a finger at him before he could get a word out. “ _Don’t_ try to convince me not to go, Ralph. I know Vanellope told you to talk to me.”

He looked guilty. Yeah, that was Ralph, incapable of lying, even for a second. “Okay, okay, fine. She did. Am I allowed to say I think this is a bad idea?”

“You can say it,” she said. “I’m just not going to listen.”

King Candy put his hands on his hips. “But look, Ralph—there _is_ something you can do for us.”

“Yeah? Is it going to make me question why I put up with you?”

With a laugh, King Candy said, “Oh, very possibly, doesn’t everything?”

Ralph snorted. “You got me there. What do you need? Anything I can do to help.”

Motioning for Ralph to follow him, King Candy began walking towards the north end of Game Central Station. Taffyta fell into step beside him. “When I came out of hiding—er, to go into hiding somewhere else—look, in 1997, after _Sugar Rush_ got plugged in, Surge found the access point I’d been using to come and go from Game Central Station. He blocked it up, and you know, since your talentsth lie in the demolitions area, I thought I might employ them to knock it down for us.”

“All you want me to do is knock down a door?” Ralph said, looking unimpressed. King Candy held up a hand and nodded. With a shrug, Ralph said, “I guess I can do that.”

The three of them walked the length of Game Central Station, finally ending up near the escalators on the north side. King Candy headed into the antechamber under the balcony. There was a door in the wall, which Taffyta assumed was a mechanical room or a storage closet. King Candy tried the handle but it didn’t turn. Locked. From the inside of his tailcoat, he pulled out a packet of lock picks, selected the right one, and jiggled it in the lock. There was a click and he smiled, then turned the handle and pushed the door open.

He slipped inside, Taffyta right behind him. Ralph had to duck and cram himself in, but managed to fit by stooping. Even though he was blocking half the room, Taffyta was still able to look around and see that she’d been right about it being a supply closet. There were several buckets piled in one corner and a mop leaning against the wall.

“I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see that,” Ralph said, his voice strained as he tried to maneuver himself into a more comfortable position in the small space.

“Calm down, it’sth not like anything important has a lock I can pick on it,” King Candy said. Ralph just muttered something unintelligible. Personally, Taffyta had a number of questions by that point, her very first one being how this closet contained an entrance to anything. All she could see were shelves with cleaning supplies and other junk on them. But she watched as King Candy went to where the buckets were stacked precariously on each other. Shoving the stack out of the way with one foot, he knelt down on the ground and brushed at the floor with his hands, wiping years of accumulated dust away.

For a moment, he held still, his palm flat on the floor. Then he knocked his knuckles against the tile and held an ear to it.

“Hey, not to interrupt, Puffy Pants, but didn’t you say you needed me for something?” Ralph said, twisting an arm to reach up and scratch his head.

King Candy traced a line in the floor, then bounced back to his feet. “It’s here,” he said.

“What is?”

Impatiently, King Candy said, “The door. Well, it’s not really a door, that was kind of the whole point. I think it was a duct, or supposed to be a duct, but it didn’t get manufactured right so it’sth just sort of a…” He glanced at Taffyta. “We’ll just go with door, I think.”

Looked like she was going to have to take _that_ up with him. Maybe he hadn’t tried to tell her she couldn’t go, but he was definitely trying to hide the realities of what they were going to face from her.

Ralph looked down at the spot King Candy was pointing at. “I don’t see anything.”

“I’m sure Surge would be really pleased to hear you’re so impressed by his tiling,” King Candy said in a tone that just skirted ‘withering.’ Kicking the buckets further out of the way and pushing the mop aside, he stood back and said, “Here you go. Have at it.”

Looking put out, Ralph said, “Not much room in here.”

Taking several steps back until he was against the opposite wall, King Candy said, “Oh, I believe in you.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ralph said, rolling his eyes. “See? I knew this was going to end up with me wondering why I bother.”

“It’sth all that touchy-feely Bad Anon, Ralph,” King Candy said, a smile twitching at his mouth. “Watch out or—hoo-hoo— _you’ll_ be leading it soon.”

With a disgruntled look, Ralph raised his arms over his head as much as he could, then brought his fists down on the floor.

It cracked immediately. Ralph grit his teeth and smashed his fists into it one more time, and then a black pit opened up in the floor, broken tiles falling into it.

As Taffyta took a step forward to peer into the darkness, Ralph said, “This what you’re looking for?”

“Yes,” King Candy said grimly. With a flippant salute, he said, “Thanksth. Remind me to buy you a drink when we get back.”

At least he hadn’t said ‘if.’

Scoffing, Ralph said, “Yeah, you already owe me three drinks at _Tapper’s_ , buddy.”

“Do I?” he said, the confusion on his face transparently fake. “Well, anyway, Taffyta, shall we?”

She was still staring down into the darkness. It didn’t look inviting. “Er, are we just…going in here?” When he met her eyes, regret flashed across his face and he opened his mouth. Before he could say anything—most likely some variant of, ‘it’s fine, I’ve got this, you go back to _Sugar Rush_ ,’ she took a breath and said, “Yeah. I’m ready.”

Before he could offer to go first, she sat down, dangled her legs over the side, and pushed herself off the edge.

Her feet didn’t hit the ground and she screamed as the darkness swallowed her, then swore when, after a second or two, her backside hit the ground. Whatever she’d landed on was sloped steeply and she kept sliding, her teeth rattling and her hands in front of her face to shield herself from anything that might be in front of her.

Then, after an eternity, she came to a stop. She could feel that her dress was hitched up around her hips, so she quickly stood and pulled it down. It was still pitch black. How were they supposed to find _anything_ if they couldn’t even see? Wait—no. She squinted. There _was_ a little light, though it still wasn’t much.

There was banging behind her and she stepped out of the way as King Candy—at least, she hoped it was King Candy—came hurtling down the chute. She coughed and waved a hand in front of her face to clear the cloud of dust that he’d brought with him. Her eyes were getting used to the tiny amount of light, and it was enough for her to lean down and grab his hand to help him up. “What _is_ this place?” she asked, her voice sounding flat in the dark.

He rummaged in his tailcoat for something, then pulled out a flashlight and flicked it on. He met her eyes and smiled. “This?” he said, then gestured vaguely with one hand. “Welcome to my old neighborhood. This is where I tried not to lose my mind.”


	9. Chapter 9

There was a faint clanking sound in the distance. Pipes, Taffyta hoped. Old pipes. Sure. Putting a hand to her side to make sure Calhoun’s gun was still there, she said, “So, that’s really dramatic and everything, but like, technically speaking, where are we?”

He took a step forward and held the light up, shining it ahead of them. There was a dark tunnel that swallowed up the flashlight’s feeble beam after a few feet. “It doesn’t have a name. At least, I never gave it one.” With a shrug, he pulled a handkerchief out and cleaned a smudge of dirt off his face. Then, his eyes flicking towards her, he said, “You have—I can—do you mind?” When she shook her head mutely, he wiped the handkerchief across her cheek. Well, there went her makeup. “Anyway, we’re still in the power strip. We’re just _underneath._ I think. To be honest, you know, I think the whole concept of space gets a little…thrown off, that is, I mean, I don’t think there’sth a one to one ratio down here to up _there_.”

When she stared at him, her eyebrows raised, he chuckled and said, “Then again, I could be wrong.”

She put her hands on her hips and peered into the darkness. The prospect of going in there wasn’t appealing. When she’d volunteered to do this, somehow she hadn’t imagined that it was going to be so…well, _dark._ “So, how far is it to where Malcolm’s code is?”

“Well, actually—hoo-hoo—that’s an interesting question, I wouldn’t say it’s terribly—”

But then he stopped talking. There was no need to ask why, because Taffyta could hear it too—behind and above them, there was a series of loud bangs and clunks, accompanied by a sustained yell of terror. The two of them took several steps away from the chute that had brought them down there just before a huge, dark form shot out of it and rolled across the floor in a tangled heap.

“Oww,” the form groaned.

Before either of them could say anything, there was another yell from above them, this one sounding a lot more like glee. Another figure appeared, glitching blue, and skidded along the ground, then leapt to its feet. “ _What?_ ” Vanellope crowed. “That was _amazing_ , aw, man, I gotta do that again.” Glitching over to the figure still sprawled on the ground, she said, “Hey, Stinkbrain, you okay? That was pretty sweet, right?”

“ _No_ ,” Ralph said, pushing himself into a sitting position.

Finally, Taffyta realized her mouth was hanging open. She shut it, only to then demand, “What the heck are you two _doing_ here?”

“Helping you, what’s it look like?” Vanellope said.

Her mouth fell open again. She couldn’t help it. Taffyta was a self-assured young woman, but Vanellope was on a whole other level. “Um, I don’t think so,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. Not exactly the most articulate or well thought out response, but it was the best she couldcome up with in the moment.

King Candy was glowering. “We don’t need help,” he said in a tone that bordered on dangerous.

“Oh yeah?” Ralph said, getting to his feet with a grunt. “‘Cause it kind of seemed to me like you already _did_ need my help. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to have me around?”

“You’re not helpful if I have to take care of you,” King Candy shot back.

“Oh, come on, sugar plum, I think I can take care of myself.”

Vanellope leaned an elbow on Ralph’s arm. “Yeah, and he’s a lot more trustworthy than _you_ , Turbutt.”

When King Candy sucked in a breath to fire back, Taffyta held a hand up to stop the argument. “Okay, okay, _seriously_ , cut it out, all of you.” Looking around at them, she said, “Ralph, Vanellope, for real, why are you here?”

Vanellope stuck her hands in her hoodie pocket. “That’s the real deal, chief. It’s great that you have King Cavity over there to uh, ‘protect you’ or whatever, but strength in numbers, right? Between Ralph being a terrifying wrecker and me being kind of a badass now—”

“Don’t swear,” Ralph admonished her.

Which she ignored, of course, because she was Vanellope, just continuing smoothly, “—I figured we could be like, your bodyguard. Plus—” She shrugged. “It sounded kind of cool. The arcade’s closed tomorrow anyway, and I don’t have to be back in _Slaughter Race_ until I feel like it. The joys of being an NPC, am I right?”

King Candy made a derisive noise, then snapped, “Fine. But if we get killed because of you two, I just want you to know, I’m _definitely_ going to hold it against you for the rest of forever.”

Vanellope rolled her eyes. “Ugh, a fate worse than death, being haunted by _you_.”

Taffyta grit her teeth and did her best not to sigh in exasperation. But King Candy’s gaze flicked towards her and he glitched a little, then held up his hands. He’d heard her. Or maybe just noticed her mood. “Okay. Fine. Ralph, thanksth for the help. Glitch, try not to get in the way.”

“Watch it, Candy,” Ralph said in a warning tone.

With another flicker of binary, King Candy clamped his mouth shut and just motioned for them to follow him. Wordlessly, Taffyta fell into step beside him as they entered the tunnel, and Ralph and Vanellope came after them. Shining the flashlight ahead at their path, King Candy said, “I want to make a stop before we do anything else.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” He glanced at her. “It’s—I want to stop where I used to live. There’sth some parts, you know, some old equipment, and it might come in handy. When we find Malcolm, I mean.”

Taffyta nodded. “You never said how long it’s going to be until we find Malcolm.”

For a moment, he didn’t speak. Then he said, “True. I also didn’t say how long it’ll be until Malcolm finds _us_.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Which was stupid. Malcolm was a creep, but there was nothing _scary_ about him. But this place…this place was giving her the heebie jeebies. “Do we want him to find us?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Uh huh, clear as cocoa. He was slipping into bad habits with the vagueness. They came to a corner and he slowly peered around it. When he was satisfied it was safe, he nodded and kept going. What was he so worried about?

Behind them, Vanellope and Ralph were talking quietly. The fact that Ralph was there actually _did_ make Taffyta feel better, though she wasn’t about to tell King Candy that. Not at the minute, at least. But she was less than thrilled about Vanellope’s presence. Vanellope, who thought it sounded ‘kind of cool.’ Like it was just a fun adventure. Like people’s lives weren’t at stake.

The tunnel came to a T and King Candy stopped. Glancing to the left, he pointed and said, “Go that way, and we get to the code room in, I don’t know, less than a day. But _we_ are going this way. For the moment, at least.” Pivoting on his heel, he turned to the right. The tunnel got narrower, the ceiling lower, and the air more stale. The further they went, the more it started to seem like a joke that she’d volunteered to take Malcolm out. King Candy was the one that knew what he was doing. He’d _lived_ here, after all.

Which, the further they walked, seemed more and more horrible. Was it pitch black everywhere down here? Had he spent ten years in the _dark?_

“Hey, Nilly Wafer,” Ralph said. “You know where you’re going?”

King Candy shined the light at the ceiling and peered upwards. “Sort of surprising, isn’t it? What, almost twenty-five years of trying not to think about this place and it’sth like I was _just_ here yesterday.”

Taffyta glanced over her shoulder. Ralph looked guilty. Vanellope was mid eye-roll.

Quietly, just to Taffyta, King Candy said, “I haven’t been down here since Malcolm moved in.”

Looking at him, she said, “I’ve kind of been wondering about that. How long has Malcolm been around?”

“Well, you know, it’s funny, actually.” With a humorless laugh, he said, “Ten years I spent down here, and I have to admit, I probably would have jumped ship from Litwak’sth if I could have. But you know when he finally got internet in this place?” When Taffyta shook her head, he said, “One _week_ after _Sugar Rush_ got plugged in. One week after I reprogrammed it. After I built myself a life. I couldn’t leave after that.”

There was a long silence while they walked. So if he’d held out one week longer, or if _Sugar Rush_ hadn’t been plugged in for another week, he could have left Litwak’s entirely, gone to the internet, and going Turbo would have stayed a cautionary tale, a ghost story. Instead he’d reprogrammed their game, stolen an entire life from its princess, and lied to all of them until sheer bad luck had exposed him.

Right after _Sugar Rush_ had reset, she’d been furious at him. Furious at him for lying, for not being who he said he was. Furious for making her think he’d cared. Okay, so a lot of that fury had been heartbreak, too. She’d never wanted to forgive him, and the fact that deep down she’d missed him terribly had made her angrier. And yet, here she was. She’d been standing at his side through thick and thin, knowing exactly who he was and what he’d done, for almost a decade now. To say ‘life was funny’ didn’t do it justice. Life was insane, like driving a new track with your eyes closed, your foot on the gas, and no brakes. Turbo the game-jumper was back where he’d spent ten years hiding, only this time, it was to save the arcade.

Meeting his eyes, she said quietly, “I’m glad _Sugar Rush_ got plugged in first.”

Raising an eyebrow, he said, “Careful there, Taff, it almost soundsth like you’re saying you’re glad I took it over.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She broke eye contact with him and stared into the darkness ahead. What _did_ she mean? She couldn’t exactly articulate it. The contradiction was too huge for words, the messiness too much to try to make sense of. All she could do was keep standing at his side, whether it was right or wrong. “I’m just—things have changed a lot.” What she meant was that _he’d_ changed, but it sounded sappy to say it. Anyway, she didn’t want him to disagree, and she knew he would, because that was just the way he was. His insecurities were almost as huge as his ego.

Suddenly, he stopped and put a hand up. Behind them, Ralph’s and Vanellope’s voices drew near then died away as they came to a halt too. “Oh, geez, he’s lost already,” Vanellope said.

“Shut up,” King Candy said, a glitch rippling down his form. There was something so matter-of-fact, so casual, about the way he said it, that Vanellope actually did it. Without thinking about it, Taffyta reached for her gun. King Candy, noticing her movement, snorted. “I see you’re comfortable with that thing already.”

She shrugged, her fingers around the grip. “No offense, but after everything you’ve been saying, it seems like a good thing _one_ of us is. Anyway, I’m a good shot.” Maybe it would have been a good idea for Calhoun or Kohut to come along, after all. What did it mean that he’d fobbed Calhoun off with what was increasingly looking like a lie about firepower not being needed?

Slowly, he lowered his hand. “I know you are. Target practice in that horrible game’s clearly paying off for you.”

He refused, for obvious reasons, to visit _Hero’s Duty_ with her. “What’s down here, King Candy?” she asked. It was clear that Ralph and Vanellope were listening closely.

Sighing through his nose, he said, “Hopefully nothing except Malcolm.”

“That’s not an answer.”

His fingers fidgeted on the flashlight. “Well, you know, I’ve never been accused of being forthcoming.”

“Hey, answer the question, Candy, would you?” Ralph said. “The whole vague-and-mysterious thing isn’t as charming as you think it is.”

“Yeah, we obviously stopped for some reason, and it sure doesn’t seem like it’s to enjoy the view,” Vanellope added.

King Candy turned so that he was facing all three of them. “Here’sth the thing you have to realize. If I could find my way down here—and look, sure I was desperate and everything, but the thing is, there’s nothing to stop anything else from getting down here, too.”

Had the others caught that? Any _thing_ , not anyone.

“Anyway.” He tossed the flashlight and it spun end over end in the air, making shadows dance crazily on the walls. “The main concern—that is, at the moment, you know, I suppose the main concern is Malcolm, but, well—I had something of a…I suppose you could call it a paranoid streak? When I was living down here. This whole hallway’s rigged with booby trapsth.”

Vanellope snorted. “Like, boulders chasing you, arrows shooting out of the wall style booby traps? That’s messed up.”

Narrowing his eyes at her, he said, “Bear in mind _my_ state of mind when I got down here in, oh, what year was it? 1987?”

“Nobody wants to have any insight into your state of mind, chump,” Vanellope said.

Taffyta shot her an irritated look and snapped, “Speak for yourself. I don’t need to get lasered to death or something.”

Putting a hand over his heart, he said, “Hoo-hoo, Taff, I’m flattered you think I had those kinds of resources. I mean, yes, they’re all deadly, but a little more rudimentary. Think sharpened metal poles and heavy objects falling from high places.”

“Okay, so fine, you rigged this place to take out anyone who came looking for you. Joke was kind on you, we all thought you were dead.” Ralph said. “So what’s the hold-up?”

His brow furrowed, King Candy said, “I’m trying to remember exactly where the trip wiresth are.”

Alarm washed over Ralph’s face. “Yeesh. Okay, that settles that. You get what you need, we’ll wait here. Taffyta, that includes you too.”

“Um, yeah, I don’t think so,” she said. Stand there in the dark with them while her best friend and the man that she was in lo—well, while her best friend went off on his own in this place? No thanks. Even if he was clearly capable of taking care of himself, she wasn’t leaving his side. Jerking her head at King Candy, she said, “Let’s go. I want to find Malcolm and get out of here as soon as possible. I don’t like it down here.” For a moment, King Candy looked at her. Then, smiling slightly, he bowed and extended an arm. Taffyta cocked a hip and put her hand on it, then said, “Um, trip wires, remember?”

“Oh! Right! Yes.” He started down the tunnel again, the flashlight illuminating only a thin beam in front of them. Taffyta drew closer to him, keeping her eyes on the ground. It would be almost impossible to see a wire stretched across the corridor. The further they walked, the more tense she got, expecting to feel her legs catch on something at any moment. King Candy was counting under his breath, and then he stopped, whipping an arm out. “—one hundred and _seven_ teen,” he said, his arm across her stomach. “Thought it was one hundred and eighteen, huh, is my stride different? Anyway, there.” He nodded and Taffyta looked down. Inches from her shins, there was a thin, practically invisible wire, stretched taut across the corridor.

Hardly breathing, she raised her arm and put her hand on his shoulder. “Good eye,” she said.

“Well,” he said, leaving his arm where it was but staring at the wire, “greatest racer ever and everything. Good vision’sth kind of a requirement for the gig.” He shined the flashlight over their heads, studying the ceiling, then stepped carefully over the wire.

A flashing red light that hadn’t been there before caught Taffyta’s eye and she didn’t think, she just moved. With a shriek, she threw herself at him, knocking him to the ground and landing on top of him as something whistled through the air. There was a crunch in the wall above them.

Taffyta twisted her head around, grabbing the flashlight out of King Candy’s hand and shining it upwards. There was a metal beam embedded in the wall exactly where their heads had been seconds before.

“Oh.” He drew in a sharp intake of breath. “I forgot I installed a laser trip sensor,” he said. “Oy. Memory isn’t want it used to be.”

“Well,” she said faintly, “you _did_ remember it was sharpened metal spikes.”

She became acutely aware of his body under hers and was it crazy that she wanted to kiss him? Was that adrenaline? Yeah, it must have been adrenaline. Not that she didn’t want to kiss him like, every single day. With a whooshing sigh, she turned back around and locked eyes with him.

His hand landed on her shoulder and he said, “Thanks, Taff.”

She cracked a smile, hoping he couldn’t feel the way her heart was hammering but knowing that he probably could. Oh well, he’d probably chalk it up to the fact that they’d almost just been decapitated. “Anytime,” she said.

From the direction they’d come, Ralph’s voice echoed through the corridor as he called, “Are you two okay down there?”

“Yeah!” Taffyta yelled back before looking at King Candy again. He didn’t move and neither did she. Then, a piece of the wall crumbled away where the beam was embedded in it, landing on his forehead. That finally snapped Taffyta out of it and she awkwardly half-slid, half-rolled off of him, adjusting her clothes as he got to his feet. He offered her a hand, and with a smile, she let him help her up.

The two of them continued down the tunnel, avoiding another trip wire and two laser sensors, before he stopped. There was a box on the wall, which he pulled at. It didn’t open. “Dammit,” he muttered, then banged on it with the back of the flashlight.

“Nice tech support,” Taffyta drawled.

“This is how thingsth were in the eighties,” he shot back with a grin.

The front of the box popped open the third time he hit it, revealing a keypad. King Candy wiped a hand across it, grimaced, and then blew dust off his palm. For a second, he hesitated, and Taffyta asked, “So…if you punch in the wrong code, is something horrible going to happen?”

“I’m hoping I just rigged the keypad to short out,” he said. “I don’t know though, I mean, I went through a few different versions of all of these. Um, let’sth see, it should be this…” Quickly, he punched in a code, then took a rapid step back, grabbing Taffyta’s arm and pulling her with him. “Just—hoo-hoo—in case,” he said when she raised her eyebrows at him.

There was a series of clunks overhead, and then something popped open above them. A hail of dust and debris rained down on them and Taffyta choked and began coughing, her eyes watering. When she got her coughing fit under control, she looked up to see a ladder hanging down from the ceiling. Her eyes followed its path upwards as it climbed through an open panel in the ceiling and disappeared into darkness.

Reaching out to grab a wrung, King Candy said, “Normally I’d be a gentleman and say ladies first, but I hope you don’t mind if I lead the way?”

“Mm,” she said noncommittally. When he arched an eyebrow, she grabbed one of the rungs of the ladder. Each one was shaped a little differently and, she realized when she looked closer, made of different things—a shorn off pipe here, a piece of plastic there. The ropes on the sides were different materials tied together, too. “This is very…DIY,” she said.

He tested the strength of the bottom rung with one foot, then hopped up, allowing the ladder to take his full weight. It creaked and swayed but held. “Hey, I did the best I could with what I had,” he said. He glitched a little, then said, “Stay with me if you don’t want to lose the light.”

With that, he turned and climbed the ladder. Taffyta took a deep breath and followed him.


	10. Chapter 10

When Taffyta’s hand found the metal floor above her instead of the next ladder rung, she sighed in relief and pulled herself up, kneeling for a second to catch her breath. The flashlight was on the floor next to the opening to illuminate it, and in the faint, diffuse light, she could see King Candy standing in front of the wall fiddling with something.

Then, with a hard click, lights blazed on. Taffyta clapped her hands over her eyes at the sudden brightness. After a minute, she chanced opening them to look around. They were in a small, circular room. The floors, ceiling, and walls were all made of treaded sheet metal. Bare wires criss-crossed the ceiling, strung from the breaker box that King Candy was standing in front of, to a hodgepodge collection of bulbs. Even a glance up at the lights made her eyes water. It was like looking into the sun.

Climbing to her feet, Taffyta shaded her eyes and studied her surroundings. The room was windowless and littered with junk. Garbage. There was a dusty keg that she thought might have been from _Tapper’s._ It was covered in… _stuff_ , like it had been used as a table—what looked like electronics with their guts hanging out, circuit boards and wires pulled out and disconnected.

She turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. There were more electronics and pieces of metal scattered around on the floor. Old food wrappers were strewn across the room, but mostly concentrated in a pile against the wall. On the other side of the room was a pile of dirty blankets, tangled in a dusty heap. One was bunched up, having clearly been used as a pillow. There was still the imprint of a head on it. The blankets—his bed—were exactly the way they’d been left twenty-four years ago, when he’d woken up and abandoned this place for _Sugar Rush_. There was a half-eaten burger sitting on the floor next to it, dried and hardened with age.

Above the bed, the wall was covered in tally marks, as he’d marked off each passing day. But a cursory glance told her it wasn’t enough for ten years. He’d given up on it somewhere along the line, year two or three, when counting the days had become pointless.

Her chest felt tight and suddenly, she wanted to cry. This was where he’d lived. This was where Turbo had hidden for ten years, alone in the dark, surrounded by garbage. Her heart felt like it might crack open.

She turned to face him. His hands were on his hips as he surveyed the room. And suddenly it occurred to her—there was nothing in the room from _TurboTime._ Well, of course there wasn’t. He hadn’t had time to get anything before the plug had been pulled. Swallowing hard, trying to make her voice come out normal, she asked, “Do you see the equipment we need?”

His eyes narrowed and then he pointed. “There it is, right—hoohoohoo—where I left it.” He crossed the room in a few strides to the keg and stuck his hand into the pile of junk, then pulled out one of several boxes with kinked wires hanging out of it. A few of the other objects fell off as he disturbed the pile, but he shrugged and left them where they were.

Then, he met her eyes. His hands drew close to his chest and his fingers curled. “What?” he asked.

She shook her head, unable to speak for a second. “This was your home.”

He shrugged. “Wasn’t much of one.”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she just said, “I didn’t know it was like this.”

King Candy lowered his arms to his sides. His fingertips glitched. “What did you think it was like, Taff?” There was a forlorn note to his voice. “Why do you think I did what I did?”

It wasn’t an excuse. There _was_ no excuse for what he’d done to _Sugar Rush_. There never could be. But suddenly, she understood that to him, at the time, it had seemed like the only way. In a small voice, she said, “You never told me.” She meant both. He’d never told her what it was like and he’d never told her why he’d done it. Not really. She didn’t think he was fully capable of it.

With a mirthless smile, he said, “You know, I used to have nightmaresth about this place.” He looked down at the hunk of plastic in his hand and twisted the ends of the wires sticking out of it. “For years and years. I’d go to sleep and I’d be back here and it was just—well, I would—I mean, that is, sometimes it seemed better not to sleep.” His fingers were still twisting the wires and flickering intermittently with binary.

“Do…do you still dream about this place?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not so much anymore. I have…other thingsth to keep me up at night.”

Vague. Typical. Not that she could blame him. It wasn’t like she went around sharing her nightmares with everyone. And hers had increased in frequency over the past three years, from the recurring dream that King Candy was back in his Cy-Bug form, to feeling herself dissolve to nothingness as _Sugar Rush_ was unplugged, then waking in a cold sweat only to realize she was safe in her bed. His, she thought, probably weren’t all that different.

Hooking a hand around her elbow, she nodded towards the part in his hand and said, “So what _is_ that, anyway?”

He flipped it over in his palm and stared at it. “A battery.”

“A battery? That’s it?”

He giggled. “Sort of a _turbo_ -charged battery. If you will.”

Focusing on him, trying to keep her eyes off the rest of the room, she said, “I thought we were going to get something to like, delete Malcolm’s code.”

“Well.” He raised an eyebrow. “I hate to reopen old woundsth, but I have some experience deleting code.”

She raised her eyebrow in return. “It didn’t _work_ when you tried to delete Vanellope’s code.”

“Yes, I’m aware. Unfortunately.” His eyes narrowed and when she gave him an exasperated look, he snorted. “Fine, okay, sorry, I know you’re not her number one fan at the moment but that doesn’t mean you wish anything _terrible_ on her, honestly Taffyta, doesn’t it get exhausting being a decent person?”

She scoffed, mainly at herself. She was nobody’s idea of a decent person, but she was herself, and over the years that had become good enough for her. “Was that a compliment?”

“You know, I’m not really sure myself.” He flashed a grin at her, and her heart pounded. God, that smile. Every time. Even here. “Anyway, yes, you’re right. That is, you raise an important point. I _did_ fail at that little project, which is why we’re going for something a little more rudimentary this time.” He held up the battery. “We’re just going to fry his code.”

This raised a number of questions. If it was possible to simply run a large enough charge through a character’s code to kill them, why hadn’t he just done that to Vanellope in the first place? Or if not in the first place, why not after it became clear that deleting her hadn’t worked out quite the way he’d wanted it to?

At the moment, though, she just wanted to get out of this room. It was too depressing. Motioning back towards the ladder, she said, “Ralph and Vanellope are probably wondering where we are.”

Pocketing the battery, he said, “Probably.” Then he looked around the room and a shadow crossed his face. Something ached in her chest again.

“You should go first,” she said. As much as she didn’t want to look at the way he’d lived, it had to be even harder for him.

He cocked his head. “I have to turn the lights back off.”

She took a few steps back towards the access in the floor and scooped the flashlight up, rattling it. “I have this.”

The bounce that was normally in his step was absent as he joined her. “Hey, Taff,” he said hesitantly. When she looked at him, he opened his mouth, then shut it again and shook his head. His hand jerked towards her shoulder, but then he stopped himself from touching her. Sometimes she felt like she could see straight through him. All his old lies, all his blustering and obfuscating, his facade of practiced apathy about his status as deposed monarch and arcade pariah. And sometimes, when he looked at her, he was as opaque and mysterious as the darkness down here.

She raised her eyebrows, but he looked away and went back to the breaker box and turned the lights off. They were plunged into pitch blackness again. Taffyta flicked the flashlight on. Its light seemed even more feeble after the blazing brightness of the ceiling lights. As King Candy descended the ladder, Taffyta shined the flashlight downward for him. At least in the dark, she couldn’t see how he’d lived.

“Well, if it isn’t Taffyta Muttonfudge, my favorite back-stabbing bitch. Long time no see, Blondie.”

Taffyta screamed and jumped, dropping the flashlight, which clattered to the ground far below. Miraculously, it stayed on, but she was in the dark.

“Taffyta?” King Candy called. “Are you okay?”

She was losing it. Hearing voices. It wasn’t a good sign considering they’d barely been down there two hours. There was obviously nothing there—how could there be?

There was a flicker next to her and she started. Malcolm was standing there, illuminated by the blue glow of a wristwatch. There was a smile on his face. “You should’ve told me you were stopping by, but that’s okay—I still have time to get the place cleaned up for you.”

“How did you—” She began. Had he been in the room the whole time? No, that wasn’t possible, there was nowhere to hide, and he couldn’t have come up the ladder while King Candy was on it.

His arm striking like a cobra, he grabbed her wrist and twisted it. She made a noise at the stab of pain, then grit her teeth and glared at him. Bringing his face close to hers, he hissed, “Get out of here, Blondie. A little princess like you doesn’t belong down here.”

She tried to yank her arm out of his grip, but he held on, twisting harder until a grunt of pain escaped her. “Yeah right, and wait for you to infect my game?” she growled.

His smile got nastier. “Well, that’s _your_ fault. You screwed me, Blondie. Did you think I was going to let that slide?”

Baring her teeth, she stomped down hard on his foot—but met nothing but air. When she looked down, Malcolm’s legs weren’t even there, and as soon as she realized that, the pain in her arm disappeared. Surprised, she whipped her head back up. Malcolm was gone. At least, he wasn’t standing next to her. He could have been anywhere in the dark room.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as her heart started pounding. Not caring if King Candy had finished descending the ladder, she knelt and started climbing down. After only a few rungs, her shoe knocked against something.

“Ow!” King Candy yelped. “Taff, I was coming back up, what’s going on?”

She clung to the ladder, trying not to cry in shock and fear, her breath coming in uneven gasps. Something touched her leg and she flinched. Her body only unclenched a little when she realized it was just King Candy’s hand. “Malcolm was there,” she said, hearing her voice come out about an octave higher than normal. “He was right there, right next to me, how could—” 

“Hey, Taffyta, slow down, just—hey, come on, let’sth just climb down this thing, okay? It’s fine, you’re fine—”

Taffyta glanced down. His form was just a dark silhouette but it was comforting, and she said, “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”

The two of them climbed down to the floor below and King Candy scooped up the flashlight, shining it up the ladder into the darkness above. “Malcolm was up there?” he asked. When she gave him one tight nod, he peered at her with concern. “Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

She rubbed at her wrist. “Nothing I won’t survive.” Clenching and unclenching her fists, Taffyta asked, “Where’d he come from? He wasn’t up there when we got there, I _know_ he wasn’t.” Her heart was still pounding and her palms felt sweaty in her gloves.

“No, he wasn’t.” King Candy let out an angry hiss of air and flipped the flashlight back down. “I don’t know how he does that, honestly, which—sorry, probably not the answer you’re looking for. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He was right, it wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but what could she do? She nodded in answer to his question and they headed back to Ralph and Vanellope. The walk felt like it lasted forever. Every hair on the back of her neck was standing up and she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was right behind her. Neither of them spoke until Taffyta said with a shudder, “This place is like…like the underworld or something. Everything’s creepy and quiet and dark and it’s even got ghosts.”

He chuckled. “That has a nice ring to it. Well, not a nice ring, I guess. You know what I mean. The Underworld.” Making a noise, he added, “That worksth for me.”

As they approached the spot they’d left Ralph and Vanellope, Taffyta saw Ralph raise a hand to shield his eyes from the light. “Everything okay?” he asked. “I thought I heard Taffyta scream.”

There was a concerned look on his face. Taffyta felt a surge of affection for Ralph. He was a good friend, probably a better friend than she deserved. So the question was, did she tell the truth and very possibly freak him out? Ralph had talked a pretty tough game since he’d followed them, but the truth was, he wasn’t really cut out for a place like this. She glanced at King Candy. It was no mystery what he’d do—deflect the question and hope no one pushed for an answer.

They joined Ralph and Vanellope and Taffyta made her decision. With a deep breath, she said, “Malcolm showed up.”

“Malcolm like, the-guy-we’re-looking-for-Malcolm?” Vanellope asked, raising her eyebrows. “Is that a good thing?”

“Not exactly,” King Candy replied. For once, there wasn’t any rancor in his voice for Vanellope. He glanced back over his shoulder towards the way they’d come. There was a thoughtful look on his face. Not nervous or concerned, just musing. Maybe he didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing, either. “We should go.”

Ralph grunted. “Sounds good to me. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

“Yeah, Ralphie, all this dust and stuff is bad for your complexion,” Vanellope said with a laugh.

Wordlessly, the three of them followed King Candy. After awhile, the corridor narrowed and Ralph had to stoop to pass through. In silence, they walked down one long hallway after another, the flashlight beam cutting through the dark. Malcolm didn’t appear again, even though Taffyta expected him to be around every corner.

Everything looked the same to her—metal walls, metal floor, metal ceiling—but King Candy seemed to know where he was going. At least, Taffyta _hoped_ he knew where he was going. She had no idea how he knew which way to turn when there was nothing to distinguish one hallway from another. The corridors were all completely empty and there were no marks on the walls or anywhere else. There was nothing but black ahead and behind them and dull silver gleaming in the flashlight’s beam in every other direction.

Minutes ran together, turning to hours. Ralph and Vanellope, unable to stay quiet for long, had begun whispering to each other, which grew to a murmur. Before long, they were talking too loudly for Taffyta’s comfort. Their voices echoed too much; it would be impossible to hear Malcolm sneaking up on them. Not that she’d heard him earlier. He’d just appeared next to her with no warning.

As time passed, Taffyta began to develop a creeping dread that King Candy maybe wasn’t as confident about where they were going as he was pretending to be. The last thing she wanted to do was say something, not in front of Ralph and Vanellope. Well, okay. Mostly Vanellope. And it was too quiet to have a conversation that wouldn’t be overheard. But she had to do something, because she knew his pride wouldn’t let him admit error. If there was even a sliver of possibility in his own mind that he’d be able to do something without asking for help, he’d keep trying by himself. That was a flaw, she supposed. A flaw he’d had for a long, long time.

They came to the end of one long hallway, intersected with another that led off into pitch blackness. King Candy hesitated for a split second; not long enough for anyone else to notice, but a flashing neon sign to her. Great. He _was_ lost. She needed to say something. 

Luckily, Ralph saved her from having to do it herself. “Is it just me, or are we going in circles?”

King Candy stopped in the middle of the hall. This one looked like all the others. He aimed the flashlight first one way and then the other. Oh, Taffyta recognized _that_. He was stalling. “Well,” he said. “It’s—er—it’s not really a _circle_ , you know, it’s mostly right angles down here—”

Vanellope’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you _kidding_ me? You’re _lost?_ ”

“That’s a strong word,” he muttered. Vanellope and Ralph were both glaring at him, while Taffyta just watched silently. After what had happened in his old…his—well, his home, the last thing she wanted to be was lost in this dark, featureless place.

Putting her hands on her hips and raising her eyebrows, Vanellope said, “Oh yeah? So if you’re not lost, what way do we go?”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “Look, it’s a maze in here, okay?”

Vanellope threw her arms up and made an exasperated noise, while Ralph crossed his arms over his chest and said, “What do you mean, a maze? Aren’t you supposed to just keep making right turns?”

King Candy adjusted his crown. “If it was that simple, do you really think I’d be lost?”

“You just said you _weren’t_ lost,” Ralph pointed out.

Waving a hand, King Candy just made an unintelligible noise.

“So let me get this straight,” Vanellope snapped. “Your _whole_ big thing was that you knew your way around down here, and now you’re _lost?_ We’re going to die down here, aren’t we? We’re gonna wander around until we starve to death and someday someone’s going to find our skeletons down here, thanks a lot, King _Chump—_ ”

“Hey!” Taffyta yelled. “Would you just let him _think?_ ”

Her voice echoed up and down the corridor. Vanellope snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide, and Ralph looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face. Taffyta turned to King Candy, her arms ramrod straight at her sides and her fists clenched, and gave him a look that was closer to a glare than she meant. If he _didn’t_ come up with the way out of here, and they really _did_ waste away, she was _not_ going to be happy.

He held her gaze and drew in a slow breath. “I know where I went wrong.” At this, Vanellope rolled her eyes, and he said, “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been down here; I’d like to see _you_ do better.”

“I never said I could do better,” Vanellope retorted.

“I was making two rightsth when it should have been two _lefts_ ,” he muttered to himself. He glanced at Taffyta again and she nodded to him. What, did he think she wasn’t going to believe him? There certainly wasn’t any reason to stop trusting him now, after all this time. Jerking his head, he began walking again.

This time, Taffyta paid attention to what he did. If this was a maze, she wanted to know the way out. _Sugar Rush_ didn’t have mazes. None of the games she spent time in did. And even though she’d looked at maps of the stages of _Hero’s Duty_ and they _seemed_ like mazes, they really weren’t. But this place—it was just one long, empty corridor after another, each one looking exactly the same. The only thing that broke them up were intersections with other corridors, with the other hallway going off perpendicular to the one they were in.

At the first intersection they reached, King Candy confidently turned the opposite direction from the way he’d been walking before. “Up, _left_ , down, left,” he said. “I can’t believe I forgot that! Hoohoohoo, I suppose I should consider that a wake-up call.”

“That you’re not as big of a genius as you think you are?” Vanellope said waspishly. “If that’s the thing that finally makes you figure it out, fine by me.”

Before he could retort, they made a fourth turn. Suddenly, the hallway changed. Everything was still made of metal, but this wasn’t the same treaded stuff that had been all over the parts of the Underworld they’d seen so far. It was flat and smooth, broken up only by grooves where one panel ended and another began.

King Candy stopped and put his hands on his hips, then glanced back at Vanellope, a smug look on his face. “You were saying, glitch?”

“I wouldn’t call that ‘genius,’ buddy,” Ralph said with a scoff. “We wandered around in there for hours.”

What did they think he was going to do? Apologize? Maybe about some things, but never a matter of pride. And that meant he wasn’t going to admit any error, either. Taffyta guessed it probably should have annoyed her. Ralph and Vanellope saw it as him wasting their time. But she just—couldn’t. She knew she was being stupid because of the way she felt about him, but she couldn’t help it. If he needed four hours to figure out the right way to go, then so be it. Forgiving his faults wasn’t exactly anything new for her.

“Well, look,” King Candy said breezily. “The important thing is we’re out now, right?”

“We’re _never_ gonna make it out of here,” Vanellope said. “I should’ve told Shank not to expect me back for another three weeks.”

A flicker of annoyance passed over King Candy’s face. “You were the one who wanted to come.”

For him, that was restrained. Taffyta expected him to add something—for a second, _she_ considered adding something—but he just started walking.

The dark was oppressive. Taffyta had never been _afraid_ of the dark, not exactly. She’d had her moments, especially when the game had first been upgraded and they’d had night for the first time, where she’d heard a noise or started thinking about something behind her. It was a childish fear, which was funny, because for the majority of her life as an actual child, it had never occurred to her to be afraid of the dark. It was only as an adult, when she knew that most of the things you should be afraid of lurked everywhere _but_ the dark, that it creeped her out.

But at least everything didn’t look the same anymore. King Candy mostly ignored any corridors branching off from this one, but once in awhile he made a turn. “Hey King Cavity, do you know where you’re going this time?” Vanellope yelled up to him once.

Taffyta looked at him and said in a low tone, “Just ignore her.”

He let a breath out in a hiss, then glanced at her, hesitated, and nodded. A stupid, _stupid_ thought crossed her mind that she wanted to take his hand. They weren’t on a romantic getaway here, and besides, he wouldn’t take it that way. As a kid she’d held his hand a lot, but she’d stopped doing it since the upgrade. At first she hadn’t really examined why. It had only been later, as months had passed and she’d started to understand the fluttering in her stomach and the swoopy feeling in her chest, and the way his smile made the whole world light up—well, it was only then that she realized the reason it felt weird to hold his hand was because she wanted it to mean so much more than it did.

Suddenly, her foot connected with something and she yelped, then swore. Something went skittering down the corridor ahead of them and King Candy aimed the flashlight at it. It bounced off the wall and came to rest at the outer reach of the beam. “Just junk,” he said, then continued on.

There was more of it, too, scattered across the hallway. It was hard to make out what any of it was, so Taffyta bent over to pick up a piece. It was a hunk of metal, dull with rust. What was it from? How had it gotten down here? Even though it was hard to tell for sure in the dark, it didn’t look like the same metal that the walls and floor were made of.

And then she heard it. Ralph and Vanellope’s conversation, more or less continuous up until that point, reached a natural pause, and in that pause, there was—a noise.

Slowly, she straightened up, listening and hardly daring to breathe. Had she imagined it? It was so quiet down here. Like a tomb. It would be easy to hear any little noise and blow it out of proportion.

Just when she was about to give up and chalk it up to an overactive imagination, she heard it again. It was a—like a _slithering_ , but also a clicking. An image of King Candy in his Cy-Bug form flashed through her mind, a form she’d only seen in her nightmares, and she felt the blood leave her face. _Click-click-click-click-click-click._ Like too many carapaced feet.

She moved, practically tripping over her feet in her rush to catch up with King Candy. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Hear what?” he said.

“That noise. I heard something. Didn’t you? It was like—” Her throat closed. _Come on, Taffyta. You’re being stupid._ She didn’t know it was something bad. And there was no reason at all to think it was a Cy-Bug. Calhoun would have known if another Cy-Bug was on the loose. And anyway, Taffyta knew about Cy-Bugs now. There was no way that only one could be living down here. It was one or it was thousands. Millions. No in between. The arcade would have been overrun with them long ago if one had gotten loose and taken up residence down here.

King Candy glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, then said breezily, “Oh, you know. This is an old place, hoohoohoo. Old places creak.”

But there was a flash in his eyes and she knew he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. For a minute, she focused on the bobbing circle of light cast by his flashlight, illuminating a thin strip of dusty air before it hit the gray, featureless walls. Her heart constricted in fear. “Something else is down here with us, isn’t it? Something besides Malcolm?”

He looked at her sharply. “What makes you say that?”

She glanced over her shoulder. Oh, only about a hundred things, chief among them, that creepy noise which she could still hear. But beyond that, his tacit agreement with everyone’s insistence that it was dangerous. _They’d_ all thought Malcolm was dangerous, but Taffyta knew King Candy was worried about something else—something additional. His reaction to the news that Malcolm had appeared in his old home had been different from the way he’d acted when he’d insisted on coming with her.

She strained her ears, but the noise had disappeared again. The only thing she could hear was the low murmur of Ralph’s and Vanellope’s voices. “Old places creak, but they don’t have legs.”

There was a glitchy spark at his fingertips. “You heard that, huh?” When she just gave him a flat look— _duh_ , she’d heard it—he jiggled the flashlight. “Well. You know.” He hesitated. “I knew I wasn’t the only thing living down here, those ten yearsth.”

A prickle went up her spine. “So whatever it is might be after us.”

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her upper arm, just for a second. The prickle on her spine turned to a frisson of shock and heat and the same swoop she got in her stomach when she hit a jump on the track.

“I survived down here for ten years,” he said. There was a note of fierceness in his voice. “I didn’t forget any of that.”

“Are you saying don’t worry?” she asked. She could still feel a residual glow where he’d touched her. Stupid. He wasn’t interested in the best of times, and this most definitely wasn’t the best of times.

Shooting a grin at her, he replied, “I never say don’t worry. A _little_ worrying is—hoo-hoo—healthy.” Then, he held out a hand for her to stop. He knelt down in front of the wall and held out the flashlight to her. “Do me a favor and hold that, Taff?” When she took it, shining it at the wall, he ran his hands over the featureless paneling.

“Are you looking for something?” she asked.

“Well, feeling for it, if you want to be completely accurate, but colloquially I guess ‘looking’ for it’s a perfectly good way to describe it, I—” There was a clunk and he cut himself off mid-sentence to exclaim, “Ha! Found you.”

“Found who?” Ralph asked, as he and Vanellope caught up.

“And what are you doing on the floor?” Vanellope asked, raising an eyebrow. “I know I call you a dirtbag but I don’t mean it _literally_.”

“Ha, ha, _hilarious_ as alwaysth, President von Glitch,” King Candy said without looking at her. Carefully, he pulled at the wall, and to Taffyta’s surprise, a square section of it came away in his hands. He looked up at them, and when all they did was stare, he made an exasperated noise and said, “Well? Let’s go.”


	11. Chapter 11

They were all silent. Taffyta heard the clicking again.

“What do you mean, ‘let’s go?’” Ralph said. “You expect us to crawl in there? Newflash, Your Candyness, but I’m not exactly the smallest guy around. There’s no way I’m fitting in there.”

King Candy rocked back on his heels, looking up thoughtfully at Ralph. “No, I guess you’re not,” he said. His eyes flicked to Taffyta and Vanellope. “Well,” he said, “ _you_ should be able to hold off anything that, er, happensth along this way.”

“What?!” Vanellope shouted, as Ralph asked, “Excuse me?”

Taffyta had to resist the urge to shush them. She leaned in and said to King Candy, “We can’t _leave_ Ralph.”

“I never said we _leaving_ him,” he replied. “The three of us can go in this way—now, I might add, we can go in _now_ , that part’s very important—and Ralph can come in through a way that’s…” He paused. “More conducive to his bone structure.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ralph muttered.

Vanellope jammed her hands on her hips. “If you think I’m leaving Ralph—”

“Ugh, _please_ , spare me the last stand dramaticsth,” King Candy interrupted. “Ralph can take care of himself, can’t you, Ralph? A lot better than he can take care of himself _and_ you.”

Looking uncomfortable, Ralph said, “He’s got a point, kid.” Glaring at King Candy, he added, “I’m just not a big fan of the whole not mentioning that there’s something down here that I _need_ to worry about taking care of myself around.”

“Need to know basis, Ralph,” King Candy said, waving a hand. “And until very recently, I was the only one who needed to—”

He stopped and cocked his head, listening to something. Taffyta heard it too—that weird combination of tapping footsteps and slithering. Her heart shifted up a few gears.

With a movement so fast that she barely even saw it, King Candy grabbed her wrist. There was a glitchy flicker in his eyes. “Taff. Seriously. We need to go. Can you convince our obdurate friend of that fact?” Glancing at Vanellope, he sighed and said, “How about this, glitch. You two go, I stay with Mr. Big-Boned.”

“No!” Taffyta exclaimed.

But Vanellope said unwillingly, “I guess I can live with that.”

“Good.” King Candy stood up and pulled out the scepter that doubled as his kart’s gearstick. With a short, hard flick of his wrist, he extended it, the baton telescoping out into a lethal looking weapon. Taffyta stared for a second. Was that new? Or had it always been a truncheon?

Vanellope looked again at Ralph, chewing on her lip, but he motioned at her to go. Sighing, she swung into the exposed duct. When Taffyta just looked at King Candy, her mouth open to say… _something_ , she didn’t know what, exactly, he gave her a smile tinged with ruthlessness. “Ten yearsth down here, remember, Taffyta? Not to mention everything else I’ve survived.” He swung the baton lazily. “Talk to Vanellope about it, I’m sure she’d be _happy_ to remind you of all the times I should’ve seen that big ‘Game Over’ in the sky.”

The noise ticked through the corridor again and he gripped her shoulder. “We’ll catch up. Follow the duct to the end. Don’t turn around.” For a second, his grip tightened. “Seriously, do _not_ turn around.”

Now was the time. She should tell him how she felt about him. That she wasn’t going to leave him out here. Except now totally _wasn’t_ the time. Something bad was coming for them, Ralph and Vanellope were staring, and he was holding a weapon that he definitely knew how to use. Exactly _zero_ of these things had featured in her fantasies of telling him about her feelings.

Taffyta took a deep breath…and chickened out. She climbed into the duct, then stopped and turned around. “Be careful,” she said, holding his gaze. Like what, she was going to be able to tell him everything she wanted to just by staring at him? He hadn’t figured it out in the last year and a half. It wasn’t going to happen now.

He flashed that smile at her one more time and then notched the panel back into place. The sound of it locking into the wall sent a bolt through her heart. Trying to ignore the insistent hitch in her throat doing its best to turn into a sob, she fumbled with the flashlight. She stubbed her thumb on the switch before it flickered on, revealing Vanellope just in front of her, and beyond the other woman, a long, narrow tunnel that kept going long past what the feeble light could reach.

She shuffled forward on her hands and knees, feeling the accumulated dirt and filth of forty-one years through her tights. “C’mon,” Vanellope hissed, looking pretty miserable herself. “Just pretend Calhoun’s back there barking orders, that’s enough to make you get a move on, right?”

Bumping her head on the ceiling, Taffyta said, “If Calhoun was back there barking orders, I’d feel a lot better. At least she’d be able to help take out that monster thing.” Which was about to possibly rip apart her friends.

“Quit cryin’, Taff,” Vanellope said in a low voice as they crawled. She shot a smile back over her shoulder though, and Taffyta took a deep breath and forced down the lump of iron and fear in her throat. Vanellope was being brave. She could be, too. Right?

The duct was somehow a million times creepier than the rest of this place had been. A million times dirtier, too. Taffyta sneezed and a cloud of thick dust flew from every surrounding surface. It seemed much too loud in the dark, enclosed space, and she froze, worried that whatever was out there would hear and come for them. It probably knew a way in that would avoid King Candy and Ralph altogether. After all, it lived down here.

For a second, she couldn’t do anything except fight down the tight fear clawing its way through her chest. Either the…the _thing_ was going to find her and Vanellope, or it was going to find King Candy and Ralph. Neither was a great option.

“Hey,” Vanellope hissed. “I’m kinda losing my light here, move your molasses!”

Her throat hitching, Taffyta crawled forward until she caught up with Vanellope. Taking several deep breaths, she said, “King Candy told us to follow this duct. There must be something at the other end.”

With a snort, Vanellope said, “Yeah, probably something really hungry and with sharp teeth.”

“Stop it,” Taffyta said quietly.

“Huh?”

Taffyta squeezed past her, shining the flashlight down the duct. She couldn’t see anything that looked like it might be a destination. “Don’t say stuff like that,” she said without looking back. “He just stayed behind so we could get away. He’s risking his life for us.”

“Oh come on!” There was a hurried thumping as Vanellope followed her. “You act like he’s being Mr. Noble Saint or something.”

“Yeah, well, what do you want to call it?” Taffyta asked, her tone rough. The further they got from the entrance, the tighter the claws around her heart squeezed. She knew she was being ridiculous. King Candy was about as far from a saint as you could get. As far from noble, too, if you didn’t count the title, and she was pretty sure you couldn’t, since he’d bestowed it on himself.

“I…” Vanellope began, but then trailed off. Taffyta didn’t really care. She didn’t know whether she wanted to talk about King Candy or not. And luckily, Vanellope didn’t say anything else. Ha, well, that showed her. Taffyta didn’t win wars of words too often. She was smart, but not that kind of clever. Not like Vanellope or King Candy. Wait—no. She’d decided. She wasn’t going to think about him. Even if it was only for two minutes, she wasn’t going to think about him.

The two of them crawled through the duct in silence for several minutes, the only thing cutting through the quiet their breathing and the muffled thumping of their knees and hands on the dusty ground. Then, startling Taffyta, Vanellope spoke. “He would’ve done just about anything to get you out of there. Doi.”

“Just like Ralph wanted _you_ out of there,” Taffyta said. “Big deal. I would’ve done the same, but it’s not like I’m going to fight off any monsters any time soon.”

“Maybe we should do some kind of monster fighting bootcamp. Then we don’t have to rely on a couple big, dumb guys to look out for us.”

Despite herself, Taffyta laughed. When was the last time she’d really, genuinely laughed at anything Vanellope had said? Of course, King Candy was the opposite of big and dumb, and—shit, she was thinking about him again, there went _that_ resolution. The reality of the situation hit her all over again and she had to suck in a breath to keep her laugh from turning into a sob. What was she going to do if— _deep breath, Taffyta—_ if he wasn’t okay? If he didn’t come climbing out of this duct in twenty or thirty minutes, that easy, charming smile on his face that made her heart pound? If everything he’d survived came to an end in this horrible place?

Just as she thought this, the flashlight, followed by her head, clanged against the end of the duct. “Ouch! Dammit!” she swore.

“Hey, look at that, little miss pretty princess _does_ have a potty mouth, after all,” Vanellope said with a laugh. “What’s up?”

Taffyta raised a fist and knocked hesitantly against the wall. “This is it. We can’t go any farther.”

“Huh? Isn’t there a turn or something?” Vanellope squeezed alongside her, though there really wasn’t enough space.

“No,” Taffyta said, frustration fighting with despair in her voice. Was this her fault? Had she missed the turn? Misunderstood King Candy’s directions?

There was a noise from somewhere behind them and both women froze. Taffyta swallowed hard. Barely daring to breathe, she twisted and shined the flashlight back the way they’d come.

Nothing. Just dull, gray walls and the beam of light growing more diffuse until blackness swallowed it. “Do you think that thing’s in here with us?” she asked, her voice coming out as a squeak.

Vanellope’s head was cocked. “That might’ve been Ralph chucking it against the wall,” she said slowly. “But…it might not’ve been.”

Licking her lips, Taffyta knocked on the wall again. It sounded hollow on the other side, but that made sense—they were in a duct, after all. _Anything_ could be on the other side of this wall, including a hundred foot plummet into more of whatever was following them.

Experimentally, she pushed at it. It gave. No duh. She’d been feeling the metal bow out under her knees the entire time they’d been crawling. But—was it just her imagination, or did she also feel it shift down?

It was almost imperceptible. Holding her breath, she gave it another push. Yes! There! She’d definitely felt it move. It wasn’t just a wall—it was a _panel_.

Her heart beating faster, she scrabbled at the bottom of it. There had to be something, a groove or an edge, that she could catch with her fingers. “Vanellope, help me for a second, we should be able to pop this panel out—” Just then, her fingers slipped into a gap between the panel and the wall. She wedged them in and yanked, and with a creak of protest, the panel came away in her hands.

“Looks like you’ve got it under control,” Vanellope said dryly.

Dim, gray light flooded the duct. Taffyta’s eyes watered, unused to anything brighter than the flashlight’s beam, and she threw a hand up in front of her face. But even when she was able to put her hand down, she hesitated at the threshold of the door she’d opened. Something could be out there—something as bad as what they’d left behind.

But King Candy and Ralph were risking their lives so that she and Vanellope could escape, and this had to be where he’d wanted them to go. With a deep breath, she ducked through the opening.

For a second, she couldn’t decide whether to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible or to be brave. She _wasn’t_ brave, so the latter wasn’t going to come naturally. Vanellope and Ralph and King Candy, _they_ were brave. Taffyta was a coward and always had been. Hadn’t she proved it when Malcolm had appeared in Turbo’s old home? When she’d been too indecisive to say something in the maze about how they were lost? Just now, when she’d let King Candy and Ralph risk their lives so that she could get away? The gun felt heavy in her jacket. It hadn’t even occurred to her to give it to either of them. She wasn’t just a coward, she was also an idiot.

But she’d never felt her cowardice so acutely as in this moment, facing the unknown crouched against a cold metal wall with her eyes screwed shut.

Drawing another deep breath, she forced her eyes open, just as Vanellope clambered through the opening and said, “Whoa.”

Taffyta looked up. Her mouth dropped open. “That’s for sure,” she finally echoed.

They were standing in a massive hall that looked like a twin of Game Central Station. Or maybe more like some kind of through-the-looking-glass version of it. Everything was gray and dim in the monochrome light. Instead of GCS’s huge windows, there were long strips of floor-to-ceiling slatted black vents. Did those vents open up to the real Game Central Station? Were they directly under it right now? Then again, King Candy had said those kinds of directions didn’t mean anything in this place. Huh, no kidding. She was completely lost down here.

Vanellope strolled away from the panel, evading Taffyta’s attempt to grab her arm and pull her back. “We don’t know what’s in here!” Taffyta hissed. The space swallowed up her voice, pushing the sound back at her.

“Sure we do,” Vanellope said over her shoulder. “ _Nothing_. I don’t see anything, do you?”

“That doesn’t mean there’s nothing here,” Taffyta muttered, thinking of the thing that had been following them. None of them had seen _that_ , either.

“Feels like we should have a campfire or something, doesn’t it?” Vanellope said cheerfully. “You should see Ralph’s face when I tell ghost stories. He’s a _total_ chicken, it’s great. Man, I’ve learned some great ones in _Slaughter Race_ , too.”

“Uh huh,” Taffyta said, still studying their surroundings. _Slaughter Race._ What, had it been a whole thirty minutes since that place had come up? Her stomach growled and she absently pulled a lollipop from her pocket, then stuck it in her mouth. She couldn’t even taste it. Her stomach felt too tightly twisted to accept the food.

“Hey. Earth to Taffyta. This is Ground Control, you on this planet, Major Tom?”

Taffyta jumped as Vanellope’s hand waved in front of her face. “What?” she snapped.

“You were zoning out. C’mon, let’s check this place out! I mean, how often do you find a weird, creepy replica of your hometown?”

“I don’t want to _check it out_ ,” Taffyta said. “I want King Candy and Ralph to be _alive_. I don’t—” She drew in a deep breath. “I can’t focus on anything until I know they’re okay.”

The look on Vanellope’s face crashed from cheerful to scared in a split second. “You think I’m not worried, too?” Actually, Taffyta was positive that Vanellope _wasn’t_ worried about King Candy, but she kept her mouth shut. “It’s not like we’re gonna help anything by standing here freaking out, right? We should make sure this place is safe. Circle the wagons and whatever. We could spend a few hours here, get some sleep. I know I could use a nap. So let’s get comfortable.”

Taffyta realized her heart was racing the same way it did while she sat at the starting line revving her kart’s engine, but without any of the excitement and anticipation and absolutely all of the gut-churning anxiety. It was hard to believe they hadn’t even been down here for twenty-four hours. Had they even been here twelve? It felt like it had been days.

“Yeah,” she said shakily, a little ashamed at her outburst. Even if she still didn’t think Vanellope cared one way or the other if King Candy came back. “So should we like, look around?”

“Recon!” Vanellope crowed. Her voice echoed in the cavernous space, breaking through the tomb-like stillness, and she looked chagrined. In a more subdued tone, she added, “Maybe we can build a camp or something. There’s plenty of old junk laying around.”

This was as true of the looking glass GCS as it had been of the corridors they’d just been in. It made Taffyta wonder how it had gotten there and what it all even _was_. Some of it looked like spare parts. Had this junk been part of Malcolm’s black market operation? Could she have come here and found the part she needed to fix King Candy’s code when _Sugar Rush_ had been upgraded? Avoided dealing with Malcolm at all? Avoided _all_ of this?

But King Candy hadn’t told her about it. She knew he hadn’t wanted to say anything about any of this until forced to. Despite the way he acted, she knew this place was full of nothing but bad memories for him. Bad memories, heartbreak, and loneliness.

Even though she knew he couldn’t come through the duct with Ralph, she still looked over her shoulder at it. Nothing. Just a dark, gaping eye staring emptily back at her. _Don’t think about it_.

Forcing herself to turn away, she caught up with Vanellope, who was far enough across the hall that Taffyta had to run to catch up. “Looks like there’s some stuff over there we can pile up,” Vanellope said, pointing. “Not exactly a five star hotel but it’s something, right?”

“It’s not going to do much if we actually need protection,” Taffyta said.

Vanellope ignored her and glitched the rest of the way across the hall. Sighing, Taffyta trudged after her. It was hard to remember why they’d come down here—and harder to remind herself that it had been at _her_ insistence. They hadn’t even made it a day without encountering something lethal. Finding Malcolm hadn’t entered her mind for hours. This had been a huge mistake.

But then she remembered those unplugged games, all those homeless characters wandering forlornly through Game Central Station, and felt sick all over again at the idea of the same thing happening to _Sugar Rush._ She already knew what it was like to be gameless, even if it had only been for a short time. Then again, was dread making her sick, or was it some latent filament of virus answering a call and waking up in her? She clenched her fists. Even if this whole thing had been doomed from the start, she still couldn’t give up.

By the time she reached Vanellope’s side, the other woman was already heaving junk into a pile. Taffyta rushed to grab a corner of something that looked like a crate before Vanellope fell back under its weight. Together, the two of them shuffled it into place.

“Oof, thanks,” Vanellope said, rubbing her arm.

“No problem,” Taffyta said, shooting her a smile. She bent over and and picked up a piece of metal that looked like a door. There was something written on it and she rubbed the coat of dust away so she could read it. “Sluggo,” she said out loud. Looking up at Vanellope, she asked, “Does that mean anything to you?”

Vanellope just grunted as she lifted another crate into place. Taffyta stacked the curved panel on the growing pile. The two of them worked mostly in silence, Taffyta trying not to notice the passage of time. Had it been an hour now? Too long. Ralph and King Candy should have been there by now.

She picked up another piece of metal and glanced at it before she added it to their makeshift wall—then almost dropped it. She’d know that curvature anywhere. It was the hood of a go-kart. The paint was still mostly intact, though age and abuse had chipped a lot of it away.

Taffyta ran a hand over the red and white striped hood and said past the lump in her throat, “This stuff is all from games. Unplugged games.” She flipped the hood around and saw, engraved along the bottom in tiny letters, _TurboTime_ , **_©_** _1980_.

There was a sound behind her and a blue flash as Vanellope glitched over. “Oh,” she said as she read over Taffyta’s shoulder. “Some carnage from Turbutt? At least it’s his own kart.”

Taffyta clenched her fingers around the panel. “Why do you have to keep doing that?”

For a second, Vanellope stared at her, holding a pitted rock in one hand. _Asteroids_. She didn’t answer Taffyta’s question. Not that Taffyta had expected her to. Tossing the rock from one hand to the other, Vanellope said, “Can I ask you something?”

This took Taffyta by surprise. When had Vanellope ever not just _asked?_ Cautiously, she nodded.

Vanellope tossed the rock again. “Do you have, like, a _thing_ for King Candy?”

Taffyta froze. Her mouth felt dry. Was this possibly more terrifying than getting eaten by a too-many-legged monster? “I…um, w-why? Why do you ask?”

Shrugging, Vanellope said, “Sometimes you seem like you like him way more than a friend. I’m just making sure you don’t, because, y’know, that would sort of be like, a _major_ betrayal, considering everything…”

But she trailed off, and Taffyta knew everything was written plain as day across her face. Anyone with half a brain would know. She was just barely capable of hiding it from King Candy, and that was only because he didn’t see her that way. It didn’t even occur to him she could feel that way about him.

The rock fell out of Vanellope’s hand. She swallowed. “Sweet mother of monkey milk. You _do_. You actually _like_ him.” For a second, all she did was stand there, staring in transfixed horror at Taffyta, who was seized by a wild impulse to make a stupid crack about there maybe being a giant monster behind her, like maybe it had evaded King Candy and Ralph and found them. It seemed pretty unlikely Vanellope would laugh. Well, it would have been a pretty feeble joke anyway.

Vanellope was still staring at her, so finally, Taffyta tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and asked, “What’s the big deal?”

Even as the words left her mouth, she knew it was the wrong move. “The big _deal?_ ” Vanellope repeated, her voice rising. “Are you _serious?_ After _everything_ he did, you’re actually…actually _into_ him! And you _really_ don’t see anything weird about that?” She paused, her mouth gaping open for a second. “That doesn’t strike you as the tiniest bit _insane?_ This is _Turbo_ we’re talking about! Not some guy you met out in Game Central Station that took you to _Tapper’s!_ _Turbo_. Did you get like, amnesia and forget everything he did?!”

“Vanellope, it was nine _years_ ago that all of that came out—”

“I don’t care if it was nine _hundred_ years ago!” Vanellope exploded. “He took over our game! He _tried to kill me!_ It’s _never_ gonna be long enough ago! Don’t you _get_ it, Taffyta? He’s not just a jerk, he’s a _monster!_ How can you love someone like that?”

Something twisted hard in Taffyta. She’d never said she loved King Candy out loud, and she definitely hadn’t said it to Vanellope. She’d just gotten used to saying it to herself in her own head. But it was true and had been for a long time, and there was no point in denying it. “I know what he is,” she said miserably. This wasn’t the way she’d imagined talking about this with someone for the first time. She’d thought…well, maybe her and Candlehead would giggle about it, or Rancis would have teased her even more than he already did. Vanellope hadn’t entered into her plans. They were barely even friends anymore, and she was pretty much the last person on the planet who’d understand Taffyta’s feelings. She took a breath. “I—I love the parts you don’t see.”

“That I don’t _want_ to see, gross.”

A shard of frustration pierced Taffyta’s meticulously managed calm. “Yeah, and _that’s_ why you’re never going to get it. You don’t want to. You don’t want to see him as anything other than a game-jumping creep, and you’re never going to. But that doesn’t mean that’s all he is.”

“Please do _not_ tell me he’s great in the sack or something,” Vanellope said.

Taffyta turned red. “I don’t—we haven’t—he doesn’t even know how I feel. We definitely haven’t done—um—anything. There, that is.”

With a snort, Vanellope said, “You sure he doesn’t know?” Then, she turned away in disgust. Taffyta told herself not to be hurt. It didn’t work.

She threw the kart hood to the floor. The clatter of the impact ricocheted around the huge space. “Stop it! Just _stop it!_ You don’t get to hold him hostage for the rest of his life, Vanellope!” she yelled. “You don’t get to hold _either_ of us hostage! _Sugar Rush_ isn’t even your game anymore, you _left!_ ”

Vanellope turned around, a glitch running up her. She looked like she’d been slapped. “Yeah, I left! I knew I belonged in _Slaughter Race_ the second I set foot in there, and if you think I was going to pretend like I didn’t so I could go back to the same life that I always had—”

“Oh, _right_ ,” Taffyta sneered. “ _Sugar Rush_ is too _boring_ , you’re just like the gamers who stopped playing because they just want to play their dumb phone games.”

“Hey! Watch what you’re calling a dumb phone game!”

Ooh, _that_ had hit a nerve. Good. “ _You_ got _Sugar Rush_ unplugged, Vanellope, and then you _ditched_ all of us and never even said sorry, or explained why you left, and Ralph had to twist himself in knots trying to tell us why you weren’t here without saying the _real_ reason, and it was a horrible thing to do to him and it was a horrible thing to do to us! And now you think you can come back here, to our—our rinky-dink, _boring_ little arcade, and tell us how to live our lives, tell me who I’m allowed to—to—to care about, and in another twenty-four hours you’re going to disappear again for five or six months and expect that _we’re_ all going to be exactly the way you left us, like _you’re_ the only one who gets to change. But _you know what,_ Vanellope? People _are_ allowed to change, and you can keep being mad if you want but you can’t make everyone else go along with it!”

“Uh, this doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else. It’s _you_ and the fact that you’re—you’re _fraternizing_ with _him_ ,” Vanellope shot back, her face red. “But way to play the victim, Taffyta!” In a high-pitched, whiny voice, she said, “Boo-hoo, I’m Taffyta Muttonfudge, and Vanellope’s _so mean_ to me because she left the game!” She sneered and glitched. “You _wanted_ me gone anyway. You hated losing to me every day!”

“Yeah, I hated losing to a _cheater!_ ” Taffyta snarled, her fists clenched at her sides.

With a violent glitch, Vanellope said, “Oh man, are you _serious_ right now? My glitch isn’t _cheating!_ And anyway, you can thank your boo for the fact that I can do it at all!” Her eyes were narrowed in rage. “The only reason I _have_ it is because he messed my code up when he, oh wait, let me see—oh yeah, when he _tried to kill me._ But you don’t care about that, right Taffyta? Because you’re like, in _love_ with him, or whatever, so who cares about all the bad stuff he’s done!”

Taffyta’s head felt hot and she couldn’t see anything except a narrow tunnel of anger in front of her, telescoping into a tight pinprick of rage. “You have _no idea_ how I feel and you don’t know _him_.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Vanellope said, rolling her eyes into the back of her head. “What a load of bull. You know when you _really_ get to know someone? It’s when they’re swinging a club at your head as you’re careening down a race track!” Taffyta’s face froze, and Vanellope’s lip curled. “What, you don’t like remembering his greatest hits? That was a good one, oh, and how about the time when he locked up your memory so you wouldn’t know who he really was? _That’s_ a good one too. He’s a liar and a manipulator and a _horrible_ person, and you fell for it _all_ over again.”

Something in Taffyta snapped. “At least he’s spent the last nine years trying to be a better person!” she yelled. “All you did was get more and more selfish and entitled until you ruined _everything_ and left the rest of us to pick up the pieces! Maybe you hate him so much because you’re a lot like him, you ever think about _that_ , Vanellope? Maybe you can’t stand him because _you_ went Turbo!”

There was a long, horrible silence. She’d said it. She’d said what every single racer in _Sugar Rush_ had thought, but never said out loud, for the past three years. What she had only said to King Candy when she knew no one was listening.

Vanellope was glitching, clearly struggling to keep it under control. Waves of blue binary were rippling over her body. “What?” she said in a low, dangerous voice.

But Taffyta was past caring about what was okay to say and what wasn’t. “You. Went. _Turbo,_ ” she said, a level of vitriol in her voice that she hadn’t mustered since before _Sugar Rush_ had reset. “But you think you’re like, _exempt_ , because Turbo took over our game, so you can do whatever the hell you want. Poor Vanellope, she’s a _victim._ ” Throwing someone’s words back in their face had _never_ felt so good. “You came _this_ close to killing _hundreds_ of people. You almost ruined _all_ of our lives! _Ralph_ is the only reason we still have a game—yeah, you think we don’t know that? You think we’re all stupid? Wait, what am I saying, of _course_ you think we’re stupid. After all, it never occurred to any of us to go Turbo and live in the internet because our game isn’t _good enough_.”

In disgust, she turned away from Vanellope, picking up the hood of Turbo’s kart again.

“You know what, Taffyta?” Vanellope said, her voice tight with anger.

“Oh,” Taffyta laughed meanly. “This should be _really_ good.”

“I could have kicked him out!” Vanellope exploded. “I could have kicked your horrible, dirtbag boyfriend out! The whole arcade wanted him _dead_ , and I could have thrown him out and let them kill him! And I still could! I’m still president, and what I say goes!”

This threat, the fear that had kept all of Taffyta’s boiling frustration at a simmer for so many years, now seemed laughably empty. “So what, I’m supposed to thank you _again?_ You want me to grovel this time? You _never_ would have done that in a million years, and you’re still not going to! Just because you did him a good turn nine years ago doesn’t mean both of us owe you for the rest of forever!”

“He didn’t deserve it!” Vanellope yelled. Her eyes were bright and her face was turning red. “ _Neither_ of you deserved it after the way you treated me. And if—”

But just then, there was a hollow _boom!_ from the other side of the hall. Vanellope fell silent and both women whirled to face the sound.

There was another _boom!_ and then another. Then, with a shudder and a crash, a door on the other side of the dim hall flew open and fell to the ground, a cloud of dust exploding into the air like a bomb had just gone off. All of Taffyta’s anger solidified into icy panic, rooting her to the spot. Her heart was in her throat.

This was it. It had found them.


	12. Chapter 12

“You call _that_ easy to get into?” a voice asked.

“Maybe you’re just losing that ham-handed touch of yoursth, Ralph,” came the response.

Taffyta wasn’t conscious of moving—all she knew was one minute she was standing still and the next she was flinging herself through the settling cloud of dust, straight at King Candy. She threw her arms around him and her heart flared when he hugged her back just as hard. “You’re okay!” she said in a half-laugh, half-sob, her voice muffled by his collar.

“Was there some question of that?” he asked. She just laughed wildly. His arms squeezed tighter, and then he put his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length, looking at her. “What about you? You’re alright? Everything okay here? You have a little something—” He squinted in concentration and rubbed a spot along her cheekbone. “Just some dirt,” he said, sounding satisfied. Had he thought they weren’t safe? Had _he_ been worried about _her?_

Her face tingled where his fingers had been. “I’m fine,” she said. “I was just worried about you.”

There was a flicker in his eyes, gone too fast for her to read, and he dropped his hands from her shoulders. With an easy smile, he said, “Please, I’m _very_ good at taking care of myself.”

“Ahem.”

Glancing at Ralph, he added with a wave of his hand, “Oh, and Ralph helped a little.”

Taffyta turned to Ralph, who was shaking his head. “Twerp,” he said, but without malice.

Taffyta hugged him too. “Thanks for keeping him in one piece,” she said, jerking her head towards King Candy. It was amazing how easy it was to be flippant now that both of them were standing there, alive and whole.

With a look that Taffyta would almost have called appreciative, Ralph said, “You know, he’s surprisingly good in a fight.”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” King Candy said, twirling the truncheon before he flicked it back down to gearstick size and stuck it back in his tailcoat. “By the way, we should close the door behind us…”

“Oh, right.” With a grunt, Ralph picked up the massive door that he’d just busted open and fitted it back into place. Then, he looked around, spotted a long metal beam, and grabbed it. His brow furrowed in concentration and his shoulders tensed as he strained to bend it, until it folded in on itself. He jammed it against the door and said, “That should slow that thing down if it wants to come in.”

“Oh, it won’t come in here. Too light,” King Candy said.

Calling this place ‘too light’ seemed misguided at best. And at the reminder of what had been after them, Taffyta looked more closely at both King Candy and Ralph. There were pieces missing from the lace cuffs of King Candy’s sleeve and an entire chunk gone from his bow tie. His crown looked blackened and eaten away at. Ralph’s clothes were even more ragged than usual, with a large number of pinprick holes across the bib of his overalls.

“So are you guys gonna tell us what happened out there or not?” Vanellope asked.

Ralph and King Candy glanced at each other. “I dunno, kid, you sure you wanna know?” Ralph asked.

Giving him a deadpan look, Vanellope said, “You’re kidding me, right? _You’re_ the one that practically wet his overalls when we did the haunted castle for Halloween that one time.”

“That was different,” Ralph said, flushing.

“That’sth true,” King Candy chimed in. “The haunted castle was pretty well done.”

Vanellope pursed her lips at him, then cracked a small, unwilling smile and said, “I’m kind of a pro at jump scares. Candlehead’s, like, gore queen, though. Total genius with fake blood. Couldn’t have pulled any of it off without her.”

Taffyta crossed her arms over her chest and interrupted, “You know he’s trying to distract us, right?” Vanellope glared at her and Taffyta glared back. She could tell both Ralph and King Candy had taken note. “What happened? What was that thing? And is it still out there?”

With a grimace, Ralph replied, “Yeah. Hate to say it, but it’s still out there.”

“Hurt, though,” King Candy said.

Ralph shrugged. “It’s a bug. A _giant_ bug,” he added, with a glare at King Candy. “ _Way_ bigger than I was led to believe.”

“It grew!” King Candy said defensively. “How was I supposed to know? It’s not like I’ve been coming down here for quick jauntsth down memory lane, you know.” He stopped and looked around the hall, then added, “Though this _does_ take me back.”

“The bug?” Taffyta prompted when he didn’t go on.

Shrugging, Ralph said, “Not much to tell. Way too many legs and teeth. Oh, and it spit acid.” He glared. “ _Another_ thing that someone forgot to mention.”

“That was new!”

Ralph rubbed at his elbow, which Taffyta suddenly noticed was covered in ragged black scabs. Vanellope saw it at the same time and asked, “Uh, Ralphie? What’s with the arm?”

“What, this?” Ralph shook his head. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, kid.”

She glitched to his side and took a closer look at it. “You’re not going to lose it, are you? But if you do, we could probably rig you up a robot arm with all this junk. Yeah, kind of a cool idea, actually…”

“Yeah, I’ll pass on that, but thanks for the thought.” He craned his neck to see his elbow, then touched it gingerly. “What do you think, King Puffy Pants?”

“About the robot arm?” King Candy asked with an arched eyebrow. Flicking his fingers, he said, “I don’t know, I think it would sort of take away from your retro charm.”

“About the _burn_ , you little bon-bon headed creep.”

Shrugging, King Candy replied, “I hope it’s not fatal. It got me too.” He held up his hand, where a scab bubbled in a black spread across his knuckles. “And I don’t think a robot hand would make me a better racer, either, so. Anyway.” He bounced back on his heels. “We hurt it, but it’s probably got—well, not _friendsth_ , exactly, I wouldn’t peg its brain function at a high enough level for complex relationships, you know, so maybe we’ll call them siblings. It’s got _siblings_.”

Taffyta felt vaguely ill after seeing his hand, which he’d hidden away again through a combination of fidgeting and expansive hand gestures. But this made her attention snap back to what he was saying. “Siblings?” she asked. “Seriously?”

“Seriously, my dear,” he said, shooting her a smile like this wasn’t the second or third most horrifying thing he’d said in the last five minutes. “They were breeding down here…damn, was it really twenty-four years ago? I guess it was, time flies…” When they all just stared at him, he cleared his throat and said, “I was _going_ to say time flies when you’re having fun but I suppose the level of fun’sth been varying over the years for all of us, hasn’t it?”

“How many of those things are down here?” Ralph asked. Rubbing his elbow, he added, “I’m not sure how many more I can take on.”

“No, well, eventually they’d get in a lucky shot and probably blind you and…” He glanced around at them. “And, hoo-hoo, not helpful, right.”

Vanellope jammed her hands on her hips. “How many are down here? Quit stalling.”

He glanced at her mildly, ignoring her tone. Not that Taffyta could really blame her for it—Ralph had that big, ugly scab, the same as King Candy, and from the looks of his overalls, he’d just narrowly avoided having the bug’s teeth clamped around his face. “I have no idea,” King Candy replied. “Could be five, could be five thousand. I don’t even know where they came from, some unplugged game or another, I guess, or maybe just stray bitsth of code that got spit out and happened to combine in a particularly unholy way.”

“So, wait, hold up. When you said ‘bug,’ I thought you meant Cy-Bug,” Vanellope said.

Binary rippled from King Candy’s feet to the tip of his crown. “They’re not Cy-Bugs,” he said, failing to suppress a shudder.

Vanellope didn’t comment on this, though it seemed like the kind of thing she’d pounce on and pick at. Especially in light of the—er—conversation Taffyta and her had just had. Yelling match, more like. Kind of a miracle Ralph and King Candy hadn’t heard it. Or maybe they had—maybe they’d followed the sound of twenty-four years’ worth of pent-up anger and frustration, and that was how they’d found their way here.

Taffyta felt herself flushing with rage again at everything Vanellope had said. She was the _worst_ , the absolute worst, and she wished Vanellope had gotten mad enough to storm off and say she was going home. Home as in back to the internet, and hopefully she’d never come back to Litwak’s.

Narrowing his eyes at her, King Candy said, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She started. “What?” When Vanellope rolled her eyes, Taffyta tried not to grind her teeth. “Yeah,” she said, her tone dripping with acid sunshine. “Everything’s fine.”

“Uh huh.” King Candy watched her for another second, then looked at Ralph, who shrugged.

Cracking his knuckles, Ralph said, “So, what did you two find in here?”

_The fact that our friendship’s in complete shambles._ The worst part was, Taffyta couldn’t even _talk_ about it, because talking about it would mean she’d have to mention what the two of them had fought about. And there was no way to tease apart all of the vitriol for each other from the fact that her feelings for King Candy had featured prominently.

Before Taffyta could say anything, though, Vanellope turned her back and gestured to the pile of junk. “A bunch of old stuff. This place is like a dumping ground for trash from old games or something. I was thinking we should sleep here.”

“I think we should keep going,” Taffyta said. “What’s the point in stopping? It’s just wasting time. Malcolm could infect another game, those bugs could get us—”

“Again, the bugsth won’t come in here,” King Candy said, sounding a little defensive.

Vanellope still had her back turned. “So this is pretty much the safest place to get a few hours of sleep, is what you’re saying?”

Clenching her fists, Taffyta repeated, her voice rising, “I don’t want to stop—”

“You didn’t sleep earlier, did you?” King Candy interrupted her.

That made her clamp her mouth shut. “Huh?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he said, “You went to take a nap. At home, before the arcade council. But you didn’t, did you?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” she said. King Candy just shrugged. She _had_ slept, technically, but her nightmare had pretty much nullified any benefit.

Clearing his throat, Ralph said, “Hey, it feels like tensions are running kind of high, so maybe we just take a breather, okay? Turbo says the bugs won’t come in here, which I’m gonna hope means it’s more or less safe?”

After a hesitation, King Candy said, “More or less.”

Ralph pointed with both hands at him. “Good enough. We don’t have to make a long weekend of it or anything, but I think we could all use a break.”

Taffyta opened her mouth to argue, but King Candy put a hand on her shoulder, just looking at her wordlessly. Heaving a sigh, she said, “Okay, okay, fine.” Even though she couldn’t see Vanellope’s face, she just _knew_ the other woman was smirking, because that was what she would do.

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have ever wanted King Candy to move his hand. But now she shrugged it off and stalked over to the junk fort that she’d been making with Vanellope before the fight.

When was the last time she’d _actually_ slept? Taffyta did a quick mental count. Had it been the night before Bad Anon and Vanellope’s return? Wait, no, she’d had dinner with Felix and Calhoun that night, and then she’d worked on the turbo-charge feature on Pink Lightning when she’d gotten home. Right, King Candy had come into the garage and she’d told him he couldn’t be in there while she was working. So, four days ago. Put that way, it was a minor miracle she was still on her feet. It was just a shame that Vanellope had suggested it, because right then, Taffyta wanted to do the exact opposite of anything Vanellope suggested.

Vanellope was already moving some more stuff around, but she didn’t even look at Taffyta. That was fine. _Totally_ fine. Taffyta didn’t want to talk to her, anyway.

Ralph and King Candy joined them, and with Ralph there, building a wall to encircle the four of them went much faster. When they were satisfied that it was high enough—so that at least they’d hear something climbing over it and have a few extra seconds to wake up, they all got as comfortable as they could on the ground.

With a sigh, Taffyta laid down on her side, her back facing the others, and closed her eyes.

~

And then she opened them. It might have been an hour or it might have been three, but she knew she’d been awake the entire time. The worst part was, now she actually _felt_ tired. Her eyes felt heavy and sandy and the back of her throat was scratchy, which was the way it always got when she’d gone too many days without sleeping. She looked at the wall of junk piled up around them. This was useless. She was never going to fall asleep—and even if she did, she’d just dream about scurrying nightmares with too many legs. Or worse, Malcolm. Either way, she’d wake herself right back up.

With a quiet grunt, she flopped over onto her other side, curling her legs up and attempting to pillow her head on her elbow. Everyone else was asleep. How did they do it? How were their minds not going a million miles an hour, thinking over everything that had already gone wrong and everything that still could?

The dim gray light in the hall was still plenty to see by, at least. So she’d be able to spot any monsters coming. Despite King Candy’s repeated assurances that it would never get dark enough in here for the—the creatures, she couldn’t stop listening for them.

Her eyes settled on King Candy, on the rise and fall of his chest, of his face in profile. He didn’t look very restful. There was tension in his face and even in the way he had his hands folded on his stomach. He—wait. The rise and fall of his chest. Taffyta stared. Then, she whispered, “Are you awake?”

There was a silence. And then, “You know, I was wondering how long it would take you to notice.”

She looked at Vanellope and Ralph, both of whom were sleeping like logs. Scooting closer to him, she said in a low voice, “I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah.” Opening his eyes and turning onto his side to face her, he said, “Me either. Then again I never do. Never did. It’sth not the sugar, you know? I mean that doesn’t _help_ , but it’s not—hoo-hoo—the root of the problem. Anyway.” His crown slid across his head to the ground and he pushed it back into place. “Why can’t _you_ sleep? You’re not stressed out, are you?”

“S _tressed out?_ ” Taffyta hissed. “Are you kidding me? I’m stressed out about _everything!_ ” For a second, it all dammed up inside her while he stared, but then it broke through and it was all she could do to keep the hysteria out of her voice as she said, “Where Malcolm is, how we’re going to find him, how we’re going to get rid of him, how we’re going to manage to not get _eaten_ or dissolved in acid by those creepy bug things, if your hand’s going to be okay—”

“My hand?’ he asked, sounding confused.

Making a frustrated noise, she reached out and grabbed it. His fingers curled around hers automatically. “ _This_ ,” she said, pointing at the bubbly looking, burnt black patch on the back of his hand. Was it getting worse? Sugar-frosted pixy sticks, it looked like it was getting worse. They needed to get back to _Sugar Rush_ so he could regenerate and get better. She felt sick to her stomach.

He chuckled humorlessly. “Oh, this.” Then, he shrugged and twisted to look over his shoulder. Taffyta followed his gaze to Ralph and Vanellope, both of whom were still asleep. Without another word, he got to his feet, still holding her hand. He offered her his other one and she took it, letting him pull her up.

The two of them crept past Ralph and Vanellope, out of the junk fort, before beginning a slow walk around the outside perimeter of the hall. The light was the same, dim and gray, as it had been when Taffyta and Vanellope had arrived. It probably never changed; never _had_ changed, in the forty-one years the arcade had been open. For a few minutes, they just walked, their feet leaving prints in the layer of dust on the floor, neither of them saying anything. Then Taffyta spoke. “Tell me the truth about your hand.” She winced at how loud her voice seemed.

“The truth?” he said, raising an eyebrow and smiling slightly. Like the truth was a joke. Well, maybe it was, to him. But then, he held his injured hand up, palm out and fingers splayed. “The truth is that I don’t know. For real. _Really_ ,” he added at her look. “But I’m not…well, optimistic that it’s going to improve.”

“So why did you make us stop?” she demanded. “The more time we waste down here, the worse you and Ralph are going to get—”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “Because I’m worried about you. I thought you needed the rest,” he said bluntly. “What happened with you and the glitch?”

Even though she tried really hard not to have a reaction, she was sure she wasn’t fooling him. “Nothing.”

“Nothing,” he repeated.

“Yeah.”

He chuckled, though he didn’t sound particularly amused. “Okay, fine. I’m not going to make you talk about it if you don’t want to.”

She met his eyes and held them for a second, wishing he’d take her hand again. “You know,” she said, “we could just go. Take care of Malcolm ourselves. That was the plan originally, there’s no reason we can’t do it.”

They reached one end of the hall, where the escalators would have been in Game Central Station. There was no second level here, just the black slatted vents reaching from floor to ceiling. King Candy stopped and rested a finger on one, peering into the darkness between the slats. Taffyta watched, her heart rate creeping up. What did she think was going to happen, something was going to reach out through the vent and grab them?

There was a faint clanging and King Candy withdrew his hand, stepping back from the vent. Taffyta resisted the urge to grab his shoulder and pull him farther away. “I think,” he said, “that—well, let’sth just say, having Ralph with us turned out to be a stroke of good luck.”

She watched him, not really wanting to ask this question. But finally, she said, “Why didn’t you want Calhoun or Kohut to come? They obviously could’ve helped.”

For a second, he stared at the black patch on his hand. Then, making a face, he said, “You’re not going to like this.”

“When has that ever stopped you?” she asked.

He chuckled. “More times than you know, actually. But you want to know the truth? Calhoun’sth a smart woman, undeniably good at what she does. Violent beyond belief, of course, _that_ goes without saying, but look. She wouldn’t have listened to me.” He stopped and looked at her, like he expected her to question this.

But she wasn’t going to. She got it. There was only one person in the arcade who knew what he was doing down here, and it was him.

But then, clearing his throat, he added, “And she wouldn’t have listened to you, either.”

Taffyta laughed derisively at herself. “Why _would_ anyone listen to me? I don’t know what I’m doing. You said you didn’t want to have to take care of Ralph and Vanellope, well, sorry, but it turns out you’re taking care of me.” The crushing disgust she’d felt at her own cowardice earlier came rushing back and she had to take a deep breath and hold it to keep the feeling from overwhelming her.

King Candy made a noise. “Give yourself more credit.”

But she just shook her head and looked away from him. Give herself more credit? Yeah right. For doing what, exactly? Her eyes drifted back to the vent. There was nothing else to say on the subject, so she didn’t. “You should have just told me there was like, a monster down here.”

“Probably.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “Is that it?”

He turned to face her. “Listen. I’m not saying this is right, but, well, I mean, I suppose I’m a bit…protective. Of you. All right? And I didn’t know if it was still down here, honestly, I didn’t, so I didn’t see the point in scaring you for possibly nothing. Hopefully nothing. Of course it turned out to be something, but, well, what can you do?”

Something hollow opened up in her chest. “Because you still think I’m just a little kid.”

“What?” Taking a step closer to her, he said, “No, no, I—no. I don’t, Taffyta. I really don’t. But I just—you know. If something happened to you—I couldn’t—I mean, I’d never forgive myself.”

She looked back to him and met his eyes again. What else did she really expect him to say? His feelings may not have been romantic for her, but it didn’t mean they weren’t just as strong. She knew he’d do pretty much anything for her.

But pixy sticks, she wished they were romantic.

A clanking came from the vent again. Was it louder this time? Did that make it closer? “Um, are you sure those bug things won’t come in here?” she asked.

His eyes flicked back to the vent and he half turned towards it. “Yes. Though, er, they don’t necessarily have to be the only thing down here.”

“ _What?_ ” she hissed. Then—oh, who cared—she wrapped her fingers around his arm and pulled him back.

He reached up and patted her hand, saying, “I mean, I don’t _know_ there’s something else down here. Just—hoo-hoo—acknowledging that it’sth not out of the realm of possibility.”

“Great,” she said. The black scab on his hand seemed larger than it had at the beginning of this conversation, but she couldn’t tell if that was just her own paranoia or if it was actually growing. “This place is so _creepy_ ,” she added with a shudder. It wasn’t just creepy, it was _horrible_ , a dark, confusing maze of dull metal corridors where a monster might be lurking around any corner. And this, the one place in the Underworld that actually had some kind of light—even if natural didn’t seem to be the right word for it—was a giant graveyard for every unplugged game in the arcade.

There was another clang from the vent, quieter this time. Some of the tension went out of Taffyta’s shoulders. If there _was_ something in there, it seemed like it was leaving. King Candy glitched to Turbo, still staring at the vent. The scab looked even worse on his gray skin and Taffyta tightened her fingers around his arm. “I can’t believe you lived down here for ten years,” she said.

He turned to look at her, a flicker of old unhappiness in his yellow eyes. “Hey,” he said, “like I said, time flies when you’re having fun.”

“Yeah.” With a snort, she added, “That must be why it only feels like we’ve been down here for like, three weeks.” Letting go of his arm, she said, “As long as we’re both up, how about you tell me what this code room or whatever is going to look like? I don’t get how there’s code down here. Why does a power strip need a code vault?”

“Well.” He began walking again, this time away from the vent. Taffyta couldn’t say she was sorry about that. “I mean, it doesn’t, not exactly. It’s—well it’s like—” He waved a hand in the air vaguely. “Look, you know how there’s all this junk down here. That’s because there’s garbage chutes in Game Central Station. You shove something in, it disappears, you don’t have to think about it ever again. Poof. Except it has to go _somewhere,_ and that’s here.”

“This is Game Central Station’s dump?” she asked.

“Kind of. All the stuff that can’t go back into its own game for some reason—that reason normally being the fact that its game got unplugged. So, see, it makes sense that I ended up down here too.” 

In horror, she asked, “You went down a _garbage chute?_ ”

“What?” he looked startled. “Oh! No, no, I hid in that little closet below the escalators. For days, actually.” He stared into the distance while Taffyta watched him. For the last nine years, she’d wanted to ask him about this: how had he gotten out of _RoadBlasters_ before it had been unplugged, and how had he tricked everyone into thinking he was dead? But the time had never seemed exactly right, and besides, she’d always figured he wouldn’t answer. But now he was volunteering the information, and she remained silent, waiting for him to continue. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I guess, well, hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, right, I should’ve just owned up—see, _look_ at that character growth—”

When he stopped to flash a yellow grin at her, she said, “You don’t have to convince me.”

He shrugged, the smile dropping off his face. “I thought they’d kill me. Still not convinced they wouldn’t have. So I didn’t come out. But I knew I couldn’t stay there forever— _someone_ was going to clean something in Game Central Station sometime, I mean, I thought so at the time, but now I’m not so sure, I think those mops might just be for show, but—” He glitched, back to King Candy and then straight back to Turbo, like his body wouldn’t let him stay in his preferred identity for this. “I didn’t know what to do. Taking over a game never even crossed my mind, not then. But I guess, right place and everything—I heard voices outside, and I was trying to push some of that junk in there out of the way to hide.”

Crossing his arms over his chest and drumming the fingers of one hand on an elbow, he went on, “I knocked a mop over, it hit the ground and just didn’t _sound_ right, you know? Like maybe the floor didn’t have anything underneath it. So I pried it up and—well, you know what I found. I ended up down here.” His fingertips glitched. “So I mean, kind of a garbage chute, in a way.” With a laugh, he said, “I was definitely arcade trash at that point. Still am, depending on who you talk to.”

There was no arguing with that. Taffyta tucked her hair behind her ears and tilted her head at him. “I used to think you must have done something really genius to get away.”

Turbo stopped fidgeting as he lifted his index finger off his arm and raised an eyebrow. “Disappointed?”

“Not really.”

“Let me guess, once you got to know the real me, you figured the whole story went something like that.”

She snorted. “Once I knew _you_ were the guy that I’d been hearing horror stories about my whole life, I didn’t know what to think anymore. But.” She reached out and straightened the collar of his jumpsuit. “I have to admit that hiding in a broom closet jives pretty closely with how I figured things went when you got out of _RoadBlasters_.”

Reaching a hand up, he ran a hand through his black hair, then pushed his sleeves up a little. “Thanks a lot.”

She shrugged, then bit her lip and touched his shoulder. “Thanks for telling me. I know you…er, really haven’t ever wanted to.” Maybe it had simply been bad memories. Maybe he’d thought she’d think less of him? So what had changed?

Taffyta glanced around the gloomy hall. What had changed was that she’d seen all of this now. Turning her gaze back to him, she said, “So…about the code getting down here?” Honestly, what she wanted to do was dwell on what he’d just told her, but she knew they couldn’t. Every minute they spent down here was another minute that Malcolm had to infect another game. Not to mention another minute that one of the bug things had to set up shop in the tunnels around this hall.

“Oh, that.” He waved a hand. “I think it’s like the stuff that gets sent down the garbage chutes, kind of—and bear with me, this is just my theory—but as we move in and out of our games and Game Central Station, we’re always towing little bits of code with us. And most of it stays with us but not all of it does, and the stuff that doesn’t, well, it has to go somewhere, you know?”

Looking around the hall, she said, “So you think all those little bits of code—what, sink down here? And then what? They all got collected together somewhere?”

He glitched back to King Candy, his eyebrows raised. “You think I’m crazy?”

With a small smile, Taffyta said, “When have I ever called you crazy?”

“Oh, I’m sure I could come up with one or two examplesth.”

Laughing humorlessly, she said, “Well, I don’t. I think you’re the smartest person in the entire arcade, for your information, and if that’s what you think then you’re probably right.” When he just blinked and stared at her, surprise on his face, she said, “What? You’re acting like you’ve never heard me say that.”

He fiddled with the battered lace cuffs of his shirt. “I guess it’s—you just haven’t said it for awhile.”

Her eyebrows shot up as she fought down a smile. She had no idea why it was important to him, but the fact that it was made her heart soar. And honestly? The reason she hadn’t said it for awhile was because it sounded like fawning; it sounded like something that a dumb girl who had a crush on her friend would say, and the very last thing she wanted him to think about her was that she was just some dumb girl. “Yeah, well,” she said, “just because I don’t say it doesn’t mean I don’t think it.”

“Mmph. Well.” His eyes flicked away from hers. “I wasn’t smart enough to not get my game unplugged. Did I show you this?” He pulled a circuit board out of his tailcoat. “Just a tiny piece of _TurboTime_. Found it back there in that pile of junk.” Flicking his wrist, he added, “A little code as a memento of our visit.”

She licked her lips and opened her mouth to respond. Just then, there was a clatter that made her jump several feet straight up into the air. When she landed, her heart hammering, she turned towards the source of the sound, only to see Ralph wincing as he re-situated a door from an _Asteroids_ spaceship on the junk fort.

Her shoulders sagged and she put a hand over her chest, feeling her heart pounding against her palm. There went the moment. If it had even been a moment at all. Maybe she was just kidding herself.

After a second, Vanellope glitched through the wall of the junk fort to Ralph’s side and both of them approached Taffyta and King Candy. “You two look ready to go,” Ralph said.

“Just waiting for you to get your beauty sleep, Ralph,” King Candy said.

“Thanks, appreciate it,” Ralph shot back cheerfully. “So, are we gonna find this Malcolm jerk and take him out?”

Taffyta and King Candy looked at each other, and Taffyta said, “Yeah. Let’s go.”


	13. Chapter 13

Taffyta’s body felt like it was physically revolting against entering the dark hallways again. When Ralph pulled the door open, her legs didn’t want to move. But then Vanellope brushed passed her, saying in a pointed tone, “I thought we were in some big hurry?”

There was a metallic screech as Ralph put the door back in place. King Candy flicked the flashlight on as the penumbra of light around the door slivered into blackness. The four of them stood there in silence for a moment, listening for the scurry of too many feet, and then Ralph said, his voice hushed, “So are these things smart enough to sneak up on us?”

King Candy turned around and shined the light down the corridor at their backs and Taffyta felt the hairs on her neck stand up. There wasn’t anything there, but it was hard not to feel like a thousand beady eyes were watching them. “Even if I told you no, would you believe me?”

“Probably not,” Ralph said. “No offense. Just the whole you-not-coming-down-here for twenty-four years. You’re pretty out of the loop.” He rubbed at his hair. “Not like I blame you.”

King Candy snorted. “Thanks for the understanding. C’mon, it’s this way.”

They walked for what felt like hours, whether or not it actually was. Everything still looked the same, and it made marking the passage of time hard. Taffyta’s mind couldn’t help wandering. What was everyone doing in _Sugar Rush_? Had any other games been unplugged? Were Rancis and Candlehead worried about them? Dumb thought—of _course_ they were worried. Hopefully Calhoun or Felix had told them what was going on. Taffyta hadn’t even thought to go back and do it herself. Kind of like Vanellope hadn’t come back to tell them she was staying in _Slaughter Race_.

She shook her head in irritation. No. No way. It wasn’t anything like that. Taffyta wouldn’t have cared if Vanellope had gone to the internet to get the steering wheel and hadn’t told them. _That_ wasn’t the part that had been bad.

It was weird to think back on the whole thing, now. Calhoun and Felix hadn’t told them about Ralph’s plan to buy the steering wheel. None of them had known until Snowanna had glanced out the window of Felix and Calhoun’s apartment and seen _Sugar Rush’s_ screen flicker back to life. The two of them had finally ‘fessed up at that point, and they’d acted really happy that the racers would be able to go back to her own game. With the benefit of adulthood, Taffyta recognized now that they’d only been pretending. They’d liked having a family…well, once the fourteen of them had stopped tearing the place apart. She had to stifle a smile. They really _had_ been kind of awful. And Felix and Calhoun had managed to make them a little more polite. When they felt like it, at least.

Taffyta reached into her jacket and fingered the gun Calhoun had given her. No point in wondering if Calhoun and Felix were worried about her. Of course they were. And they wouldn’t be happy if they knew what had happened down here so far. 

Suddenly, her fingers caught on the grip and the gun slipped out of her jacket. Taffyta made a desperate grab for it but it still fell through her fingers, and she watched it fall to the ground in paralyzed slow-motion. It hit the ground with a clang, deafening in the small space.

King Candy and Ralph both started and Vanellope glitched, then all three of them turned around. Taffyta felt frozen. At least the gun hadn’t gone off. _Stupid._ Rookie mistake, Calhoun would say, and she’d be right. Finally, her body let her move, and she bent over to scoop the gun up.

Rolling her eyes, Vanellope said, “Are you trying to kill us all or something? Dying outside our games is permanent, remember?”

“Sorry,” Taffyta mumbled, stowing the gun away again. Ralph and Vanellope had already started walking, but King Candy lingered, waiting for her. When she moved to catch up with him, he nodded and kept moving.

“Ouch. Real dumb blonde move, there, sweetheart.” She almost dropped the gun again as she jumped. Malcolm was standing there, leaning against the wall. “The whole girl-with-a-gun look’s kinda hot though, I’ve gotta admit. Show some more skin and I’d like it even better.”

Baring her teeth, Taffyta snarled, “Leave me alone!”

From farther up in the corridor, Vanellope snapped, “ _You’re_ the one who just dropped a loaded weapon on the floor and you’re gonna go off on _me_?”

Taken by surprise, Taffyta glanced away from Malcolm. When she looked back, he was gone.

Swallowing hard, she rushed to catch up with the others. “Didn’t you hear that?”

Ralph looked at her. “Uh…hear what?”

Taffyta’s arms dropped to her sides in shock. “Hear _what?_ Malcolm! He was right here!”

There was a silence. Then Vanellope scoffed. “Oh man, she’s losing it. It’s like sensory deprivation down here and she can’t handle it.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Taffyta snapped. “I’m _not_ crazy, this is the second time I’ve seen him—” Turning to King Candy, she said, “You believe me, right?”

Before he could answer, Vanellope scoffed. “Oh right, we’re supposed to get on board with something _he_ says?” To Ralph, she added, “Taffyta hates stuff like this, it freaks her out, and she’s seeing things—”

“I am _not!_ ” Taffyta insisted.

At that, Ralph held up a hand and said, “Hey.”

King Candy’s eyes narrowed to slits and he shined the light directly in Vanellope’s face. She made a noise of protest and put her hand in front of her face. “Say Taffyta’sth hallucinating one more time, glitch,” he said, his tone deceptively cheerful. “Really. Try me.”

Vanellope jammed her hands on her hips. “Oh geez. Seriously? You’re a pretty pathetic knight in shining armor—”

“Hey!” Ralph said again, holding up both hands this time. “Can all of you just cool it? We’re supposed to be working _together_ , or maybe you forgot? We got a bunch of games upstairs, or—well, wherever, and they’re counting on us to take care of Malcolm. And we’re not gonna do it if we can’t stop bickering, okay? So just knock it off.”

Vanellope smirked at King Candy and said, “You tell ‘em, Ralphie.”

Looking at her, he said, “That means you too, little sister.”

And that, Taffyta was happy to see, shut Vanellope up. Her mouth clamped shut like it was spring-loaded.

With a sigh, Ralph turned to Taffyta. “Kid, look, it _is_ sort of weird that the rest of us aren’t hearing this creep when he shows up.”

“I don’t know why,” Taffyta said despairingly.

Motioning with the flashlight for them to keep walking, King Candy said, “He might not even really _be_ there. And I’m not—hoo-hoo—saying you’re imagining it, Taff.”

“Maybe it’s the virus still in my code,” she said, hugging her arms around herself.

Ralph made a noise. “The one you had years ago? Puffy Pants told us all he got rid of it.”

“I did,” King Candy said. He met Taffyta’s eyes and repeated more softly, “I did.”

“Yeah well,” she said, casting around for an explanation, “so the virus isn’t actually _there_ anymore. But maybe it’s like…like chicken pox or something?” Not that arcade characters got chicken pox, but you didn’t spend your whole life listening to kids and not pick stuff up. “You get it, and you can’t get it again because your body makes antibodies to fight it off.” The others looked confused, and she sighed in frustration. “Your body recognizes it. So what if _my_ code has like, antibodies in it? I mean I know that’s not how it works for us, but what if my code, like, recognizes him as a threat instinctively now? And he can hide himself from the rest of you, but not me?”

And though she didn’t say it, she was thinking of another example, too. When the upgrade to _Sugar Rush_ had almost destroyed King Candy’s code and she’d gone into the code vault to fix him, she’d had to tether their code boxes together to talk to him. She’d felt, ever since then, that his code had left a mark on her that wouldn’t ever go away. She didn’t understand how it worked, but she knew it was there.

King Candy was looking at her, his eyebrows drawn together in thought. “Maybe,” he said slowly.

The idea of having a connection to Malcolm made her skin crawl, but she was also sure she was right. It would explain all the times she’d felt a weird answering echo in herself when Malcolm’s particular brand of virus showed up in the arcade.

As they walked, King Candy still looked thoughtful, and after another minute or two, he glanced at her and said, “Code can— _viruses_ can, in particular—well, they can leave marksth. Look at what that Cy-Bug did to me.”

“What, you mean your split personalities?” Ralph asked.

Spinning on his heel to walk backwards, King Candy said, “Not sure I could fix it if I tried. The damage runs too deep.”

And no one was going to _let_ him try, either. Taffyta had been given unrestricted access to the code vault two years ago after the upgrade had almost killed him, but he still wasn’t allowed inside. When she’d repaired his code, he hadn’t asked her to try to fix his glitching. She’d sort of gotten the impression that he didn’t want it fixed, that learning to live with both the persona he’d abandoned and the new one he’d made for himself was the cross he’d decided that he needed to bear. That choosing to be King Candy was the physical manifestation of choosing to be a better person.

Abruptly, their surroundings changed. The hallway widened and changed color to a dull copper and the four of them stopped walking. “Look familiar?” Ralph asked.

King Candy looked around, hesitating. A furrow appeared on his forehead, but then he nodded and started moving again. “We’re getting closer now.”

It was impossible not to feel exposed as they walked through the hallway. Bugs, Malcom—anything could jump out at them. The flashlight barely lit anything. Taffyta tried to slow her breathing. Were the others as scared as she was? If they were, they weren’t giving any sign of it. Of course, why _would_ they be? Ralph could fight off anything that came their way. Vanellope lived in a game where horrible stuff was around every corner. And anyway, Vanellope had never seemed afraid of anything. It was one of the things that had driven Taffyta to bully her more and more mercilessly before the game had reset. Once, just _once_ , she’d wanted to scare Vanellope. It had never worked.

And King Candy…Taffyta glanced at him. He’d been through so much worse. What was left that could scare him?

“What’s that weird buzzing sound?” Vanellope asked suddenly.

Ralph put a hand up to her his ear. “I don’t hear anything.”

A spark of sudden pain zapped from Taffyta’s feet through her legs and she yelped, her voice echoing off the metal walls. “Did anyone else feel that?” she asked. Her extremities were tingling.

Vanellope grimaced and Ralph said, “Yeah. Felt like an electric shock.”

King Candy was looking around, a shadow of unease creeping across his face. Just as Taffyta was about to ask him what was going on _this_ time, she felt every hair on her arms and neck stand on end, and when she put a hand out in front of her face, her hair drifted towards it like a magnet. “Um,” she said.

The buzzing that Vanellope had mentioned was unmistakable by then and the unease on King Candy’s face flipped over into fear.

Oh. So there _was_ something that could still scare him. “We should go,” he said. “Preferably now. Like _right_ now.” Suddenly, the buzzing reached a crescendo and he yelled, “Everyone, _move!_ ”

They threw themselves to the side of the hallway just before a bolt of sizzling electricity split the air and cracked into the ground where King Candy had been standing a second earlier.

Vanellope was the first on her feet, her eyes wide. “Hey, for once, I’m okay listening to Turbo. Let’s get out of here!”

Taffyta flattened her palm on the ground and pushed herself to her feet, grabbing King Candy’s arm and hauling him up with her in the same movement. The buzzing was already building in volume again, this time from multiple points around them. The four of them ran, Ralph bringing up the rear.

Another bolt of electricity crackled past and they scattered. Taffyta’s foot landed at the edge of the jagged black scorch mark that it left on the floor and heat seeped through to the sole of her shoe. The flashlight beam was dancing crazily in front of them as King Candy ran just behind her.

The air buzzed again and Taffyta ducked as lightning flashed over her head from one side of the hall to the other. This was it, she was going to die, she was going to get fried to death down here like a _BurgerTime_ burger, okay no, bad comparison, those were grilled, not even grilled, he did them on a griddle, and—

She screamed as a bolt of electricity tore through the air, hitting the ground between her and Vanellope. Ahead of them, charges were arcing across the hall, burning blue and white streaks across Taffyta’s retinas. This was it this was it _this was it,_ game over for sure—

And then suddenly, it was over. They crossed some invisible line in the hallway and the lightning bolts were no longer flying around them. Taffyta’s hair laid flat again and the air stopped buzzing with electrical charge.

The four of them stopped running, all of them gasping for air, and Taffyta wheezed, “What—the heck—was _that?_ ”

“Energy discharge,” King Candy replied, breathing heavily. His crown tipped off his head and he caught it, settling it back into place. “Surge protector, you know. There must have been a power surge or something, maybe there’s a storm outside…”

“Ooh, a dark and stormy night,” Vanellope said. “Seems about right.”

They all turned around, watching the bolts of electricity arc through the air in the hallway behind them. White light flashed on their faces as each bolt hit the opposite wall and dissipated, some melting into the metal and some sending out spidery flickers.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped. The final remnants of static electricity dropped out of the air. Ralph took a breath. “Everybody still in one piece? Hope so, because I don’t know how to treat electrical burns.” He thought about that for a second. “Or any burns, actually. So don’t get burned.”

Vanellope held her arms out and studied them. “All good here.”

“I’m fine,” Taffyta said, having finally caught her breath. Just freaked out, but what else was new? In that moment, she loathed herself. It had been her big idea to come down here. Yeah, sure, she was going to save the arcade. _Her_. She was nothing but baggage. She couldn’t take care of herself, she couldn’t find the way, and she didn’t know how to get rid of Malcolm. If they got out of this alive—and that was looking pretty tenuous at the moment—and they actually accomplished what she’d said _she_ was going to, there’d be one person to thank, and that would be King Candy. The arcade might need to rethink its definition of going Turbo. Or maybe just rethink how often they used it.

King Candy was looking at her, his brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” She tried to smile. “Honestly. See?” She held her arms out and spun around. “Totally still in one piece.”

He cocked his head and smiled a little, a tinge of something she wasn’t used to seeing on his face—some kind of…of goofy softness? If she had to characterize it, that was. For a moment, she found herself staring at him, but then he snapped out of it—whatever _it_ was—and said, “Good, well, you’ll all be happy to hear, we’re close now, and—”

But then he stopped talking, his jaw hanging open for a moment as his eyes unfocused. Taffyta didn’t need to ask what was wrong, because she heard it too.

The four of them all turned around to face the skittering noise behind them.

“Oh, shit,” Vanellope said.

Ralph gulped and said weakly, “Don’t swear.”

Taffyta had always thought that, if she were to ever face a terrifying monster in the flesh, she’d just faint dead away. Failing that, her legs would give out. Or she’d scream. If she really had her wits about her, maybe she’d turn and run. But it turned out that none of those things happened.

Her legs were a solid mass of concrete and her throat was frozen shut. As she raised her eyes from the floor upwards, taking in sixteen legs, a huge segmented carapace, pincers, and a gaping mouth full of rows of razor-wire teeth, Taffyta thought she might never move again.

“Well,” King Candy said in a voice tight with forced cheerfulness, “I never said it wasn’t coming back, did I?”


	14. Chapter 14

The bug raised its head, bobbing it as though it was sniffing. Its face was covered in coarse hairs, and there were two lines of beady black eyes on both sides of its head. Wait—no. Only on one side. On the other, there were just oozing, pus-filled abscesses where its eyes had been. King Candy had said they’d hurt it, but Taffyta had _really_ been hoping they’d hurt it more. This looked like the kind of injury that would just make it mad.

Its mouth opened and King Candy reached into his tailcoat for his scepter, snapping it out to its full length, as he handed the flashlight to Taffyta without looking at her. The bug’s underside was glowing faintly, providing enough illumination to fight it. Ralph cracked his knuckles. “Time for some wrecking.”

The bug clacked its pincers and lunged forward. Several of its legs on one side were dangling and looked broken. Taffyta’s own legs finally unfroze and she stumbled backwards. King Candy stepped in front of her and said, “Taff, Vanellope, get out of here.”

With a metallic screeching noise, like nails on a chalkboard, the bug skittered straight at King Candy. He bared his teeth and cracked the baton across its face. It reared back, still making that horrible noise. Taffyta clapped her hands over her ears and took another step back, but where were they supposed to go?

Ralph ducked in and got his hands under the bug’s carapaced underside, lifting it and flinging it against the wall. For a second, it lashed from side to side on its back, its legs waving in the air, but then it flipped itself upright. Two sacs on either side of its mouth inflated and a stream of clear liquid jetted from them. The stream landed inches from Taffyta’s shoes and hissed as it ate into the metal floor, and she took several quick steps back.

“Taffyta, seriously, run!” King Candy yelled.

She put her hand in her jacket to pull out the gun, but he made a swift motion with his hand and the look in his eyes was so pleading that she made a face and grabbed for Vanellope’s arm.

The bug was advancing on Ralph and King Candy again, swinging its head between them as though it couldn’t decide which one of them was the easier target. How were they supposed to just _leave?_ Looking at Vanellope, meeting her eyes for the first time since their fight, Taffyta knew she was thinking the exact same thing. They couldn’t.

Taffyta pulled the gun out of her jacket, but at that moment, there was another nails-on-chalkboard screech from behind them. The two women turned around. For half of an excruciatingly stupid second, Taffyta convinced herself that if they couldn’t see what was coming, if she didn’t shine the flashlight down the tunnel behind them, then nothing would be there. But she could see a yellow glow approaching, low to the ground, a flat disc of horror approaching them _way_ too fast. If the injured bug was in front of them, then this one— _siblings_ , King Candy had said—wasn’t hurt.

Without thinking, she flipped the safety off on the gun, aimed at the glowing disc of the bug’s belly, and fired. A blast of plasma shot out of it, illuminating pincers and teeth for a split second before it hit the bug. It screamed and stopped for a moment. Vanellope grabbed for the flashlight and aimed it at the approaching bug. “Shoot it again!” she said urgently.

Taffyta didn’t need to be told. She fired several more rounds at it but it kept coming.

From behind them, Ralph shouted, “Look out!”

Without thinking, Taffyta dove to one side, landing hard on her shoulder. Razor teeth clamped shut in the space where her head had been. Ralph appeared and drove his fist into the bug’s face, yelling in pain as the acid sacs splattered their contents across his hand and arm.

As Taffyta scrabbled out of the way, King Candy ducked in, whirled his scepter around in a blur, and smashed the acid sacs. They burst with a wet squelch and acid droplets sprayed everywhere, singeing tiny holes in Taffyta’s tights, dress, and gloves.

“That’ll help,” he said with a hard cheerfulness, getting a hand under Taffyta’s arm and pulling her to her feet.

“Ralph!” Vanellope yelled from the other side of the corridor. The other bug was practically on top of her.

With a roar, Ralph pounded towards it, knocking it off its feet.

The bug in front of Taffyta lunged, hooking a pincer on Taffyta’s jacket. She screamed as it yanked her towards its mouth, lifting the gun up and firing without thinking.

Three plasma bolts hit it in the mouth and it shrieked, metal against metal, god it was horrible, and fell back heavily, ripping a hole in the shoulder of Taffyta’s jacket. She clapped a hand over the spot, feeling bare skin and something wet. Whatever, she’d worry about that later. The bug was lying on the ground on its back, its legs twitching. Dead. She hoped.

Then, static sparked at her fingertips. She almost dropped the gun. “Guys!” she yelled over her shoulder at Ralph and Vanellope. “Another energy discharge!”

Lightning arced across the hall again, illuminating the bugs in horrific detail. They were bigger than she’d realized, their carapaced shells extending back and up in hooked spines. The uninjured one was agitated by the electricity, its pincers swinging wildly as it scuttled back and forth.

But as quickly as it had gotten distracted, it seemed to remember that it had four tasty snacks in front of it. Or maybe it was just mad they were in its territory? With a scream, it darted at Ralph. But instead of ducking out of its way, Ralph gave an incoherent yell and ran straight at it, avoiding its pincers and the rows of teeth. He disappeared underneath its glowing belly, then lifted it over his head and flung it into the lightning bolts criss-crossing the discharge hallway.

The bug landed on the floor, thrashing on its back, before it managed to flip itself back over. It came running at them, all of its legs moving too fast and too independently of each other.

Then electricity arced out from the wall and connected with it. Its body spasmed, legs snapping straight out and curling in, before it dropped to the floor. Lightning kept flashing above it, but it didn’t move. In the flickering light, Taffyta thought she could see a wisp of smoke rising from the body.

Vanellope sagged. “Yikes,” she said.

Ralph rubbed at his hands, where black acid burns were spreading. “You can say that again.”

“Well, good thing for the giant bug zapper,” Vanellope added, smiling shakily.

Taffyta’s legs were trembling as she turned to face King Candy. “Do you think there are many more of those things down here?”

With a helpless shrug, he said, “I wish I knew. Honestly. I take _no_ joy in telling you I don’t.”

Suddenly, the bug that she’d shot stumbled to its feet, rearing up over King Candy. Its jaw unhinged, revealing rows upon rows of teeth inside a gaping mouth, and one of its pincers shot out and closed around his mid-section.

She didn’t think. She stepped forward to stand in front of him, raised the gun, and fired over and over again, straight into the bug’s face. First its undamaged eyes, then straight back into its mouth, until, with another shriek like the sound of rending metal, it slumped back to the ground.

It twitched once. Taffyta took another step and shot its throat, right between the destroyed acid sacs.

Then, finally, it was still. Its belly continued to glow dimly and she stood there, gun trained on the bug, for another minute. When she was convinced it was dead, Taffyta turned around, breathing heavily, and dropped the gun to her side. “Can we _please_ get the hell out of here?” she said.

Ralph and Vanellope both looked disturbed. King Candy just looked disgusted as he pried the pincer off him, which flopped heavily to the ground. But when he looked at her, his expression was harder to read. At least he wasn’t looking at her the way Ralph and Vanellope were. The way they were staring wasn’t exactly making her feel good. King Candy put a hand on her uninjured shoulder and squeezed it. “Nice shooting,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said, still feeling breathless. She’d never killed anything in her life, not for real—Cy-Bugs didn’t count, since they just re-hatched. But she hadn’t thought twice about killing that thing, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

He leaned over and furrowed his brow at her other shoulder, and she glanced over at it. Her jacket was shredded, a flap hanging open, and the torn edges were stained dark. With a hiss, he said, “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, reaching up to cover the wound.

But he pulled her hand away and looked at her shoulder. “It’sth not nothing.” His fingers were tight around hers and all she could do was look at him as he squinted at the blood oozing out. Her shoulder throbbed, truthfully. She didn’t want to think about what kind of acid or poison was in it. “Nothing a little regeneration won’t cure, so the sooner we get back to our game, the better.”

Vanellope sounded shaken as she asked, “So how much further?”

Finally, King Candy looked away from the gash on Taffyta’s shoulder, meeting her eyes. He didn’t answer Vanellope. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Seriously.” The weird thing was, she meant it. The injury? That was nothing. Glancing at the bug again, she added, “I’m in better shape than _that_ thing, at least.” Lightning from behind them was flickering on it, making its legs look like they were still twitching.

“Well, _that’sth_ for sure,” he said. Then, he looked at Ralph and Vanellope and asked, “What about you two? Still in one piece? Two pieces, I suppose?”

Nodding, Ralph said, “Yeah, we’re good.” There was a concerned look on his face as he looked at Taffyta, which she guessed was better than him looking at her like she was a psycho.

King Candy jerked his head. “C’mon.”

Silently, the four of them edged past the dead bug, continuing down the hallway. Vanellope still had the flashlight, and she made sure to shine it steadily in front of them to illuminate the way. After a few minutes, Taffyta realized she hadn’t put the gun away, and she stowed it back in its holster in her jacket.

As they walked, a dim glow began pervading the corridor, and Vanellope was able to switch the light off and toss it back to King Candy. He was quiet, even more so than he’d been the rest of the time they’d been in the Underworld. Was he still worried about her? Well, that was fair, she guessed. She was worried about him, too. His hand looked worse.

Should her wound scare her? Was it really any less frightening than anything else she’d experienced in the last two days? Why were some things terrifying, and other things that were just as dangerous didn’t bother her? She didn’t know life any other way, but suddenly, the things that she took for granted seemed strange. Her views of death changed based on where she was. And not just death—injury and illness, too. Was it like that for Vanellope when she was on the internet? Sure, her code had been added to _Slaughter Race_ , but what about when she was outside her game? What about all the people who lived on the internet? It sounded like most of the appeal of living there was in _not_ staying in your game, or on your site, or whatever. Wasn’t it dangerous there?

For the first time, the idea of Vanellope leaving Litwak’s for the internet didn’t fill her with rage. It was never going to be something that made her happy. But bad things happening didn’t mean that nothing good could come of them. Taffyta didn’t need to look any further than her own life for the proof of that, did she? By any measure, her entire life was a study in bad things resulting in unexpected good ones. She wouldn’t be who she was if not for them. If Turbo hadn’t gotten two games unplugged, if _Sugar Rush_ hadn’t been plugged in and he hadn’t taken it over, if he hadn’t been exposed as a fraud and if she hadn’t gone Turbo herself and brought the virus back—all of that had made both of them into the people they were.

She glanced at him. Thirty-four years ago, he’d risked death over simple jealousy, because he couldn’t handle someone else getting the attention that he’d felt entitled to. Now, he was risking his life for an arcade that, if they didn’t quite hate him anymore, certainly didn’t _like_ him. If he never came back, there’d be very few denizens of Litwak’s who would mourn him. Would he be here, trying to help, without all the bad that had come before? If _TurboTime_ was still plugged in, and Turbo was just the selfish, cocky jerk from an outdated racing game a couple outlets down, what would the arcade look like? If Vanellope had ruled _Sugar Rush_ from the beginning, would Taffyta be who she was now?

The answer to that was undoubtedly ‘no.’ And that was the thing. Taffyta didn’t want to live in a Litwak’s where there was no King Candy, where she didn’t befriend her game’s brilliant, neurotic, mercurial monarch. Without Turbo hijacking _Sugar Rush_ , Ralph and Vanellope wouldn’t have become friends. They wouldn’t have gotten _Sugar Rush_ unplugged. Calhoun and Felix wouldn’t have taken in the racers and become the next best thing to parents that Taffyta had. Heck, Felix and Calhoun might not even have been together.

In that arcade, sure, a lot of bad things wouldn’t have happened. Taffyta may never have gone Turbo and infected her game. But she also wouldn’t have the relationships that she did—with Calhoun and Felix, with Ralph, and with King Candy.

She would never change anything about what had happened—because if she did, it would mean he wasn’t in her life. He was flawed, and maybe that was putting it nicely. He was never going to be anyone’s definition of a good person. But he’d spent the past nine years trying, and when Taffyta was really honest with herself, she was trying right along with him. Without all the terrible things he’d done, they wouldn’t have the lives they did: the messy, complicated, frustrating, exhilarating, wonderful lives they led together.

And even if he never loved her back, even if they were just best friends for the rest of forever, or however long both of them had, she wouldn’t trade that for anything.

The light in the hallway had grown brighter. No, not really brighter. Taffyta squinted. It was more that it was…stronger. It was the same dark glow that lit _Sugar Rush’s_ code vault, illumination only in the loosest sense of the word.

Then, suddenly, they were there. She didn’t need King Candy to tell her. The four of them were standing at the edge of the world. The metal floor ended, just stopped in a straight-edged cut-off of treaded aluminum, and beyond it was blackness. There was a pulsing green light coming from the walls and from globules floating around in the vast, empty space. The blobs were all different sizes, some with connectors trailing out of them, hooking to others, and some just floating alone.

“Whoa,” Vanellope said. “This doesn’t look right.”

King Candy set the flashlight down on the ground carefully. “No one built this. It sort of just…well, built itself.” He cocked his head, staring into the black. “A game’sth code vault has…order. You know? This is—what’s the best way to put it—it’s _stuff_ , and you don’t know what you’re going to get when you open up one of those code boxes.”

“Looks more like a code glob,” Ralph observed.

Flashing a grin at him, King Candy said, “I think I like that better. Code globsth. Yes.” He set his shoulders and took a breath, then exhaled through his nose. There was still a slight smile on his face. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you all once Malcolm’s dead. Hopefully. No guarantees he doesn’t take me out first. I have—hoo-hoo—some idea of what he can do down here, but, I guess, well, I’ve never seen it in _action_ , exactly, I suppose there are bound to be surprises…not good ones, either…”

“No way,” Taffyta said flatly.

There was a silence. King Candy looked startled, especially when Ralph crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Yeah, I second that. I came down here to help get rid of Mr. Class A Jerk Face, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Yeah,” Vanellope said, tightening her ponytail. “Same, Turbutt.”

He looked at the three of them, his eyes flicking from one to the other, and said, “Well, that just—that doesn’t make sense. It should be me. I know what I’m doing. I—”

Rolling his eyes, Ralph said, “Stop being such a martyr, Candy. What, you think everyone’s gonna love you again if you kick the bucket down here?”

“I mean, it would be nice,” King Candy said, sounding put out. “A _little_ appreciation for my noble sacrifice wouldn’t be totally unreasonable, would it?”

Vanellope stuck her hands in her hoodie pockets and gave him a direct look. “Just tell us what to do. Four heads are better than one, right? And if you don’t think all four of us can take him out, then I don’t know why you think _you_ could do it by yourself.”

King Candy opened his mouth, then slowly shut it. A glitch rippled up him, and then, unwillingly, he said, “You have a point, as much as I hate to admit it.”

Then, he glanced at Taffyta, looking torn. She knew that look and she put her hands on her hips. “You’re thinking about telling me not to go in there, aren’t you? Do _not_ say it.”

“I had a feeling you’d react that way if I tried,” he muttered.

For a moment, Taffyta stood there in silence, glaring at him. He didn’t look particularly surprised to be on the receiving end of it. But there was absolutely _no_ way—if he thought he was going to go in there and leave her out _here_ , when he could be hurt or killed—well, it wasn’t going to happen. It was as simple as that. It just wasn’t going to happen.

Vanellope looked between the two of them, rolled her eyes, and then whispered something to Ralph. To Taffyta’s astonishment, the two of them moved a little ways off, enough that there was at least the illusion of privacy.

King Candy watched them go and looked back to Taffyta, his expression confused and a little suspicious. “Where are they going?” he asked.

For a long moment, she stared at him. The best thing to do was just explain that he couldn’t leave her behind. The virus infecting the arcade’s games was her fault—and even if it wasn’t her fault, she felt responsible for it. That meant it was her responsibility to go in there with him.

But then she looked at him, at the slight tilt of his head, the little furrow of concern between his eyes—she loved their color, even though she’d never been able to decide if it was brown or hazel. The only thing she knew was that in a certain light, they looked almost gold. And instead of saying the right thing, she clenched her hands into fists and said, “I can’t lose you again!”

Blinking in surprise, he said, “What? You’ve never _lost_ me—”

“Um, excuse me, I have lost you _two_ times,” she said. Holding out a hand and ticking them off on her fingers, she said, “When _Sugar Rush_ reset, and when it got upgraded.” Taking a deep breath, she added, “I can’t handle a third.”

He stared at her, his hands curling into loose fists. “You—but I wasn’t gone—”

“Which I didn’t know.” Oh god, she was going to blurt out something that she’d regret for the rest of her life. _Get it under control, Muttonfudge._ Sucking in a deep breath, she said, “We’re like, well, we’re kind of like a team, aren’t we?”

Surprise flickered across his face. “Do you think so?”

“Don’t you?”

“Well, I—” He stopped, took a breath, and tilted his head at her. “For a long time, actually. Yes.”

She nodded. “Same.” Drawing in another breath, she said, “We’re going in there together. We’ve been a team for forever, and that’s not going to stop now.”

With a nod, he glanced away from her. His fingertips were glitching red and she didn’t know why, but she wanted to grab his hands and tell him she’d always be there, through anything and everything. That whatever he was afraid of, whatever stress or anxiety was making him lose control of his glitching, she’d be there to try to make it better. If he didn’t know that by now, though, maybe he never would.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t want to lose _you_ again.”

Taffyta’s heart stuttered. “When have you ever lost me?”

He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow, then held up two fingers, ticking them off. “When the game got upgraded. And when _Sugar Rush_ reset.” Something flickered in his eyes, but then he smiled a little. “I’m not sure where I’ve heard this before, but—I can’t handle a third.”

And at that, she reached out and took his hand in hers. “Okay, well, I’m not going anywhere if you don’t. Promise?”

With a chuckle, he squeezed her hand. “Promise. Now.” A determined look entered his eyes. “What do you say we take out this son of a code monkey?”

“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes and flipped her hair, then shot him a crooked smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

For just a second, he drew her hand closer to his chest, covering it with his other hand. Then he let go and nodded to her. Taffyta turned to Ralph and Vanellope and said, “Hey guys, ready?”


	15. Chapter 15

Every time Taffyta stepped into _Sugar Rush’s_ code vault, there was a tiny moment of panic before weightlessness caught her. Even though she knew from years, now, of experience, that she wasn’t going to fall, it always took her body a second to catch up to her brain.

This was worse. It seemed like she fell for an extra three or four seconds, though she knew that couldn’t be the case. Just as she was about to scream, the same code vault force she knew from home caught her. It was rougher than _Sugar Rush’s_ and her whole body jerked to a sharp stop.

She looked up and saw King Candy floating above her. As she kicked up to join him, she caught a glimpse of Ralph spinning slowly, his face a shade of green that didn’t look healthy. Meanwhile, Vanellope already looked at home, treading air near the entrance. As Taffyta stopped and pivoted to face King Candy, she glanced around the room, hoping for some sign of Malcolm. But everything looked the same. The code globs were still floating around, flickering green. There was no one and nothing else there besides them.

Now that they were inside, she could hear a low hum coming from everywhere—and nowhere. It seeped through every molecule, every byte of her code, into her bones, making them vibrate at a frequency that was just vaguely nauseating. _Sugar Rush’s_ code vault had a similar noise, but that one felt—well, _right_ , somehow. Like it matched her. Maybe the hum in all code vaults was tuned to the game’s code. Where did that leave King Candy when he’d had access to their game’s code vault? Had _TurboTime’s_ code had a similar enough frequency? Or had he felt like this, just on the verge of ill, a sourness creeping through his body, every time he’d been in there? If they got out of this alive, she’d ask him.

The four of them huddled together, Ralph still looking queasy. King Candy pulled the battery out of his tailcoat, popped it open, and connected a few wires inside. But before he could say anything, Taffyta held out a hand. He looked at her in surprise. “I want to do it,” she said shortly. When he hesitated, she wiggled her fingers. “C’mon. It should be me.”

“It should be all of us,” Vanellope said. She met Taffyta’s eyes. “Hey, it’s our home too, right? _Sugar Rush_. Litwak’s. So we all have the same stake in this.”

What Taffyta wanted to say was, _But we don’t. It’s_ not _your home. If we fail, you can go back to the internet and everything will be fine for you._ Maybe she’d think about old Litwak’s sometimes and feel sad about how the whole place had been taken down by a virus. But it wasn’t the same. For Taffyta, King Candy, and Ralph, this was the only home they knew, and the only home they wanted.

But still. She appreciated what Vanellope was saying, even if it didn’t make up for anything.

King Candy still hadn’t handed over the battery, so Taffyta drew in a breath and said, “Vanellope’s right.” Ugh, those words hurt. “We can like, draw Malcolm out. And once he’s there, he’s not going to expect _me_ to be the one to come after him. He’s going to think it’s _you_ , or Ralph.”

With a long-suffering sigh, King Candy plunked the battery into her hand. “Fine. Have it your way. So we’re bait, is that what you’re saying?”

Flashing a grin at him, she said, “Maybe.”

Ralph rubbed at his stomach. “What if he doesn’t show up?”

Taffyta tucked the battery into her jacket. “He will. He knows we’re here, and he knows what we’re trying to do.”

He gave her a concerned look. “Yeah, and what if he’s listening to every word of this conversation?”

Her mouth opened to respond, but then she closed it. She didn’t have an answer to that. And when she glanced at King Candy, he just shrugged.

Rolling his eyes, Ralph said, “Real comforting. Hey, chess master, you’re supposed to be how many moves ahead of everyone else?”

King Candy sniffed and flicked his fingers. “Maybe I am.”

Yeah right. Though it was impossible to tell if this was true or not, Taffyta doubted it. She fingered the battery in her jacket and just said, “So…I guess…we’ll just spread out. Whoever he comes after first, just yell.”

This wasn’t a plan, but King Candy didn’t argue, and neither did Ralph or Vanellope. She gave everybody one last chance to come up with something better, and then she said, “Okay, ready? Let’s go.”

The four of them moved into the code room, fanning out. The air seemed to get colder as Taffyta swam. Malcolm was nowhere to be seen—nothing changed at all, in fact. The code globs kept floating and flashing intermittently, the walls kept glowing faintly, and the teeth-rattling hum kept boring into her brain. It was giving her a headache and somehow making it feel like a screw was being drilled through her shoulder. She glanced at it. The edges were turning black.

She stopped and turned around in mid-air. Was this stupid? It _felt_ stupid. Malcolm might not even _be_ there—he could be up in Game Central Station getting another game unplugged. Or, for that matter, doing something mundane. He might have been getting a damn burger from _BurgerTime_ , for all she knew.

And then, without warning, a wall of white swept in. Mist closed in around her, swirling in shapes that were gone too fast to focus on. No, wait—it was snow, and suddenly she was freezing. Frigid wind gusted and cut through her, stinging her injured shoulder. She shivered and hugged her arms around herself. What was happening? Somehow, and she didn’t know how, but _somehow_ , Malcolm was doing this.

Then, suddenly, she heard whispering. Her code froze in her veins. Oh no. No, no, no, she knew that sound. She knew that _voice_.

The tip of a claw pierced the wall of snow, purple gradienting to red, and Taffyta backpedaled away from it. But the wall of snow at her back became a literal wall, a solid sheet of ice that she bumped again and couldn’t get through.

The claw became a hand, blood red and chitinous, and inch by inch, her nightmare appeared. King Candy as a Cy-Bug, the form that she’d never seen with her own eyes but which had been stalking her dreams for nine years, crawled through the swirling snow, filling the empty space. His head swung on his long, articulated neck until his eyes fell on her. Somehow, they were more crazed in person than they were in her dreams. Then again, how did she know this wasn’t a dream? How did she know she hadn’t passed out? How could you tell reality from hallucination when everything seemed as solid and real as you did?

The Cy-Bug grinned, its sharp teeth interlocking and glinting in the dark un-light of the code room. The jagged purple lines running from its forehead, down its face to its mouth, looked like blood. “Hello, my dear!” it said gaily, its voice a sinister imitation of King Candy’s.

She shuddered and pressed her back against the hard wall of ice at her back. Every time over the years she’d told herself not to be afraid, every time she’d thought her terror would stop her from taking action, she’d been wrong, and she’d found something inside herself. When things got bad, she remembered what she was made of, and it wasn’t taffy and strawberry hard candy and glitter. It was iron, hard and unbreakable.

But none of that mattered now. With the Cy-Bug coming closer to her, its legs bracing itself against the walls of her bubble of mist and snow, it was all she could do not to close her eyes and wait to die.

It put a single, razor-edged claw under her chin, than ran it from her neck down her chest to a spot right over her hammering heart. Beads of blood followed it in a scarlet line.

“ _Taffyta_ ,” it said, smiling. “Taffyta, Taffyta, Taffyta. It’s a pretty name, don’t you think? I do.” Its face came closer to hers and she would have whimpered if her throat wasn’t frozen. “Pretty name for a pretty girl,” it whispered, turning towards her hair and smelling it. With its other clawed hand, it stroked her hair, the tip of its claws sliding along her scalp. “A pretty little morsel,” it hissed in her ear.

She swallowed hard and tried to press back against the wall, but there was nowhere to go. She was pinned on the tip of its claw. It was exerting just enough pressure to hurt, but not enough to do serious damage. But she knew it could run her through on that finger if it wanted to.

“Hoohoohoo!” It threw its head back as it laughed, and it was the most horrible thing she’d ever heard. Worse than the sound of the virus destroying _Sugar Rush_ , worse than the bug in the corridors that she’d shot. It went straight through her eardrums to her brain and she knew if it didn’t stop, she’d lose her mind. “Oh, _relax_ , I’m not going to eat you. Where’sth the fun of that? I’m all about fun, you know, Taffy. I know you know, because that’s what you love about me, isn’t it? Well, hoo-hoo, not _me_. Oh, it’sth too bad, Taffyta, because you know I’m just using you?” The claw twisted in her chest and her throat hitched in terror. “You’re just a stupid, silly little girl. A _child_. And you think anything I’ve ever said to you is true? Anything about you being my _friend_ , and caring about you, and you being important to me? All I ever wanted was someone stupid enough to fall for all of it. And you were _so_ desperate to see the good in me, even though it was never there. You _so_ wanted to keep your friend. Isn’t that _sweet?_ ”

Taffyta wanted to put her hands over her ears to block out everything it was saying. She knew none of it was true, but at the same time…hadn’t a tiny, frightened part of her always worried that it was?

It put its other clawed hand over its carapaced chest, then laughed again. “But I suppose that’sth why I _chose_ you, my dear. That naïve gullibility, that’sth exactly what I needed, and when I take this whole pathetic arcade down, I’ll have _you_ to thank.” He grinned at her and put his face inches from hers, his head snaking out on his candy-necklace neck. His eyes bored into hers. “I couldn’t have done it without you, sweetheart.”

The claw pushed deeper into her chest, blood welling around it, but suddenly, the pain was gone. So was the fear. Her heart slowed. Taffyta met the Cy-Bug’s eyes and smiled. Sweetheart? King Candy had never called her ‘sweetheart’ in his entire life. “Oh yeah?” she asked.

Its cerci lashed against the wall and it drew its head back. “Why are you smiling?” it asked.

She bent her knee and braced one foot against the wall behind her, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is impressive, I have to admit. The creepy mist, the horrible hallucination, and like, credit where credit is due, Malcolm, you know how to get in my head. Guess you always have though, right? That’s kind of your thing.”

The Cy-Bug bared its teeth and suddenly solidified into a solid, glassy material, then cracked into thousands of tiny pieces and shattered with an explosive force. Taffyta was thrown backwards through the wall behind her and hit the edge of the code room with a hard thump. Her spine cracked and she gasped in pain.

When her eyes stopped watering, she looked up. Arrayed in front of her were King Candy, Ralph, and Vanellope, all of them frozen, their eyes glazed over. They all were still in the grips of Malcolm’s hallucination. Just as she was about to push away from the wall, Vanellope dropped several feet straight down with a startled yell. Taffyta dove for her and grabbed her arm as the force in the room caught her. “Hey! Vanellope!”

Vanellope grabbed her forearm and took a breath. “That was…”

“Freaky,” Taffyta supplied. “Tell me about it.”

With a nod, Vanellope said, “We gotta snap those two out of it. I’ll take Ralph.”

Taffyta kicked towards King Candy, stopping in front of him, but she hesitated before she touched him. She had no idea what he was seeing. What if she became part of his hallucination and he tried to hurt her or something?

That was what Malcolm would have wanted her to think. And screw that.

She reached out and took his hand. He jerked violently, his pupils dilated and then contracted to black dots, and his other arm shot out. Then, his eyes found hers and focused. “Taff,” he breathed, putting his hands on either side of her face.

“It’s not real,” she said, wrapping her hands around his wrists.

For a second, all he did was stare at her, but then he caressed her face with both thumbs and said, “Right.”

What had he seen? He was staring at her wide-eyed, but she knew he wasn’t going to tell her. Whatever it had been, the look in his eyes, frightened and vulnerable in a way that he almost never was, left no doubt that it had been terrible. “You okay?” she asked.

With a nod, he said, “Are you?”

She put a hand to the side of his face and tightened her grip on his wrist with her other hand. “Malcolm’s gonna hide in here. We’ll never find him.” Then, something occurred to her, and she let go of him. “Oh, pixy sticks,” she said. His hands dropped away from her face and he gave her a questioning look. Taffyta took a breath. “He keeps appearing to me. Our…” Making a face, she said, “ _connection_. I bet I can find him in here.” Putting a hand to her jacket to make sure the battery was still there, she said, “I can do this.”

There was still a shadow in his eyes, but he smiled at her and said, “Oh, I know you can.” Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “Guessth I’ll go babysit Ralph and the gl—” Then, he hesitated before correcting himself, “—Vanellope.”

He turned to go, but then twisted back towards her. The flicker of vulnerability was still in his eyes. Reaching out and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, he said, “Listen, Taff—be careful, okay?”

With a crooked smile, she said, “Careful? That’s totally my middle name, when have I ever _not_ been careful?”

At that, he laughed, held her eyes for another second, and then moved away. Taffyta watched him head for Vanellope, who looked like she was still trying to snap Ralph out of whatever hallucination Malcolm had conjured up for him. If she had to guess, none of them would ever talk about what they’d seen. She knew she wouldn’t.

She glanced down at herself and put a hand to her chest. There was no bloodstain on her clothes. The skin was unbroken.

Breathing in deeply, she turned around and headed deeper into the code room. The space behind her grew dark until she couldn’t see the others anymore. As she moved through the air, it seemed to grow thicker, and voices began whispering around her. Their words were gibberish, an incomprehensible swirl of murmurs that no matter how hard she listened to, she couldn’t make sense of.

Suddenly every voice whispering and hissing around her resolved themselves into two points, then funneled forward into a single spot in front of her. A gray wall appeared around her, slithering from nothingness to a dome arching over her head until she was cut off from her friends. In the silence inside, she couldn’t hear anything but her own breathing, too loud and fast in her ears. Her pulse throbbed in her injured shoulder.

“Malcolm,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Stop being a jerk and come out.”

The wall disintegrated in a person-shaped form off to her side and she spun in the air to face it. Malcolm materialized there, that horrible, sleazy smile on his face. Taffyta’s heart shifted up several gears. “Hey there, Blondie,” he said.

She held her ground. Er, air? She didn’t move back at least, because she knew that was what he wanted. He got off on the fact that he freaked people out. Well, she was done being scared of him. Her jacket was weighed down by the gun on one side and the battery on the other. Who would have thought that a glittery pink, blonde racer from a candy go-kart racing game would end up with a plasma pistol in one hand and a code-frying battery in the other?

She wasn’t a little kid anymore. Her game had been unplugged, she’d been aged up. She’d lost her best friend and coded him back into the game. She’d been infected by Malcolm once and survived it. She knew how to shoot, she knew how to code, and she was done taking shit from him.

“Man.” Malcolm shook his head. “Real nice of you and your friends to drop by for a visit, but it’s the weirdest thing, I just get this feeling that the four of you didn’t exactly have a social call in mind. Is it just me, or…?”

“I have a proposal,” Taffyta said.

“Oh yeah?” He took a toothpick out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth. “This should be good.”

Somehow, he was closer to her without her seeing him move. Taffyta put her hands on her hips. She wasn’t going to play his game. “Leave Litwak’s.”

There was a silence. He rolled the toothpick between his molars. “And why would I do that? I’ve lived here for as long as you have. Wasn’t that sort of your whole thing with Turbo? _Sugar Rush_ was his _home_ , von Schweetz _had_ to let him live there. Or am I wrong?”

How did he even know this stuff? It was like he had tendrils everywhere in the arcade, watching all of them all the time. Like his code was everywhere.

She ignored his question. “Why do you want to stay here, though? I mean, our arcade’s totally rinky-dink.” Mentally, she apologized to the other Litwak’s denizens. “Think about living on the internet—all those people, and websites and games to screw up; you’d have _way_ more fun there.” It occurred to her as she said this that those websites and games were full of real people too, like Vanellope and her friends in _Slaughter Race_. But she didn’t think he’d actually take her up on this. And anyway, well, to be totally brutal, sometimes it was just them-or-us.

“Interesting,” he said. “It might be fun.” Taffyta smiled encouragingly at this and Malcolm smiled back. Uh oh. “You _do_ bring up a good point, Blondie. Eventually old Litwak’s is going to get boring.” His smile turned to a leer. “But you know what—before I head out, I think I’ll stick around long enough to get _every single game_ unplugged.”

Taffyta felt herself turn pale and Malcolm laughed. “Not what you were hoping to hear? Too bad, sweetheart, _really_ too bad. So since I seem to’ve surprised you, let me tell you how this is going to go.” His hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm, his fingers squeezing like a vice. “One by one, each game in Litwak’s is going to get infected. Surge is going to try to stop it, but he’s not going to be able to, because that’s not his job. So you’re going to watch them all lose their games—every character—and they’re all going to know it was because of you. And you know what game I’m going to take out last?”

Instead of answering, she glared at him.

With another laugh, he said, “Aw, Blondie, that’s no fun. I guess I’ll just tell you, then.” He had slowly backed her up until she was against the mist, solidified into a wall just like during her hallucination. Something caught her eye. There, in the mist wall, almost too faint to see, was scrolling binary. “I know everyone in _Sugar Rush_ thinks they’re safe, because you’ve got all that security on your code vault, and you’re Wi-Fi enabled now and get patches. But you know better, don’t you?” He smiled. “Your game isn’t safe at all, because of that little part that you stole from me. That bypass node to keep Turbo alive and kicking? That’s the way I’m going to take down your game. Straight through your buddy and the giant, gaping security vulnerability that you and him built into _Sugar Rush_.”

What was it with her and men who loved the sounds of their own voices? The difference being, of course, that she happened to love the sound of King Candy’s voice. Malcolm’s grated on every nerve in her body. Whatever though—his monologuing had given her exactly what she wanted—cover to reach into her jacket and pull out the battery. She touched the anode and got a painful shock. It took every ounce of willpower not to flinch in pain.

She tightened her fingers around it and said, “I guess I can’t make it up to you by taking _you_ out on a date?”

Surprise flashed through his eyes and he opened his mouth to answer.

Taffyta moved. Her arm came up at a sharp angle, aiming the battery straight for that horrible mouth.

His hand whipped out and caught her around the wrist just inches away from his face, and he forced her arm up over her head, pinning it there. “And what do we have here?” he asked, a nasty smile on his face. He moved the hand that was clenched around her arm to pluck the battery out of her hands, studying it. “ _Oh_ ,” he said. “You thought you could fry my code with this. Well, it might’ve worked. Guess you’re not going to find out, though.”

With that, he smashed it against the hard, white wall around them. Taffyta watched the pieces fall into the darkness below, her heart frozen in her chest.

“Why did you wait so long?” she asked, her teeth gritted. “That was two years ago. You could have come after me _any_ time.”

He put his hand back on her arm and pulled her closer, until all she could see were his hard blue eyes and his leer. Her shoulder ached where he had her other arm pinned over her head. Something warm and wet dripped down her back—her wound was bleeding again. “Because I wanted you to feel _safe_ ,” he said. “I wanted you to feel cozy and secure, playing house in your stupid little game. I wanted it to hurt as much as possible when plugs started getting pulled.” He put a finger under her chin, then ran his hand down her neck and the front of her body to her hip. It stopped at the hem of her dress, then slid to her thigh, his horrible, grasping fingers reaching up. “Just think, Blondie, you could’ve avoided all of this. Plus, we could’ve had a lot of fun together. Still could…”

A surge of hatred burned through her. “You’re disgusting,” she spat. Disgusting and underestimating her. Like everyone always did. Her fingers closed around the grip of the pistol in her jacket.

He just laughed. “My best quality, sweetheart.”

With a nasty smile, she said, “Gee, and there are _so_ many to choose from.”

She twisted her arm, pointed the gun at him, and shot him in the chest.


	16. Chapter 16

Malcolm fell back, bright green blood splattered across his chest, his eyes dead and vacant. The wall of mist evaporated and Taffyta kicked back from the body, then screamed as she collided with something. When she whirled around, King Candy was there, his hands up and palms out. “I got worried,” he said.

“We’ve gotta go,” she said. “He’s going to regenerate and he’s going to be mad when he does.”

King Candy squinted at Malcolm’s floating body, which was already flickering as regeneration kicked in. “Green blood! Huh, somehow, I didn’t see that coming.”

“ _King Candy._ ”

“Oh! Hoo-hoo, right, getting out of here.” The two of them started moving through the air as fast as they could and he asked, “What happened?”

There was a noise behind them but she didn’t dare look back. “What happened is that we need a plan B. Or maybe C or D. We _can’t_ kill him.” The noise was getting louder. “We can’t rip out his code; it’s _everywhere_. Look around—”

His eyes flicked around the code room as they swam and she could see the realization hit him the same way it had hit her. Everything was scrolling with faint binary. Malcolm’s code made up this room; he’d taken over all of it. He _did_ have tendrils everywhere, sprouting here in the darkness of Game Central Station’s underbelly and crawling through the surge protector.

Suddenly, something occurred to her and she came to a screeching halt. “I know what to do,” she said.

King Candy stopped too, but when he turned, his eyes grew wide. “Er,” he said. “You might have to hold that thought for a minute.”

Even though she really, _really_ didn’t want to turn around and look at what he was staring at, she did. And—yep, instant regret. There was a giant wall of frothing water headed straight for them. Binary scrolled through it, sick and green, and it was making the same stomach-churning noise that Malcolm’s virus had made in _Sugar Rush._ Taffyta swallowed hard and reached for King Candy’s hand, and he wrapped his arms around her, shielding her head with a hand.

She took a deep breath a second before the wave crashed into them and closed her eyes. _It’s just a hallucination._ But what if it _wasn’t?_ Did she really know what Malcolm could do down here? The walls were made of his code. She didn’t have a clue how much control he had over the environment.

And then the wave hit, slamming into them with such force that it sent them tumbling. Taffyta’s stomach yawed and turned upside down as water battered her. Somehow, she held onto King Candy, but as they continued getting rolled by the wave, her lungs started to ache and she knew she was going to drown.

But it wasn’t _real._ It couldn’t be real. There was no water in this code room, therefore there was no way there could be some random, giant wave here. But the salt ripping at the open wound in her shoulder felt real, and so did the press of water and the raw force of it as it picked them up and hurled them.

She tried to swim with one arm while she held onto him with the other, but she didn’t know which way was up and which was down, and when she opened her eyes, forcing them wide against the sting of the salt and the pain of water rushing by, all she could see was a swirl of froth and bubbles and binary.

This was it. She couldn’t hold her breath anymore, and she couldn’t make the hallucination stop. Maybe it _was_ real. Somehow, it was real, and this was how she was going to die. Game over. Hey, maybe Malcolm would leave the rest of the arcade alone once she was dead. She doubted it. He obviously was getting too big of a kick out of tormenting everyone.

Then, something hit her chest like a ton of bricks and a voice cut through the roar of water. “Hey! Kid! Breathe, c’mon, just take a breath—”

Her lungs spasmed and she gave up and did what the voice said, sucking in a huge lungful of air. Water didn’t flood her mouth but she coughed anyway, gagging on the taste of salt water that wasn’t there.

Slowly, she focused on the face looming over her. “Ralph?” she asked, lifting a hand to her face to wipe water out of her eyes. Her skin was completely dry. Something was squeezing her other hand tightly and she looked over to see King Candy holding it, his own eyes dazed.

Ralph ran a hand through his hair. Vanellope was floating at his side, chewing on her lip and looking frightened. “Are you guys okay?” she asked.

King Candy made a motion as though to wring out his tailcoat, then realized he was dry and dropped it. “You tell me,” he said. “Are we dead?”

“Man, you should at least give me a challenge,” Vanellope said with a faint smile. “The sick burn is right there, it’s not even worth the effort to go for it.”

“Sorry,” he said, coughing. Ralph slapped him on the back and he almost went flying, but Taffyta held onto his hand and stopped him. It just about yanked her arm out of its socket. “Taff,” he said, “you said you know what to do?”

She furrowed her brow, her mind still foggy from the near drowning. Er, suffocating. _Had_ she said that? Her brain was coming up blank. And then, with crystal clarity, it came back to her. Turning to King Candy, she said, “Do you still have the piece from _TurboTime_? That circuit board? You said it was a little piece of code.” When he reached into his tailcoat and pulled it out, she smiled. There was understanding on his face. “We can’t delete Malcolm’s code,” she said. “But we can overwrite it with something else.”

“Like a virus,” King Candy said.

“Well, actually, what gave me the idea was him talking about the upgrade _Sugar Rush_ got.” She squeezed his hand. “And your code almost getting overwritten.”

Looking at the circuit board doubtfully, Ralph said, “How’s _that_ going to overwrite Malcolm’s code? No offense, but it doesn’t look like much.”

“Because.” King Candy put a hand on either edge of the board and held it out. “This _happens_ to be the piece of hardware in the code vault with the .exe command on it.” When Ralph and Vanellope looked at him blankly,he sighed and said, “It executes the program. Makes it go. You know. Beep beep? Turbotastic times ahead. Only, well, in this case, it’s just _adios_ , Malcolm.”

Taffyta snorted. “That’s pretty Turbotastic, if you ask me.”

“So, what are you saying?” Vanellope said. “You’re going to like, download _TurboTime’s_ program into this code room?”

“Well, there’s not enough of it to actually run it here. It’s just enough to overwrite Malcolm’s code.” King Candy glanced at Vanellope. “And _I’m_ not going to do it,” he said. Taffyta opened her mouth to say that that was exactly right, _she_ was going to, when he went on, “ _You_ are, President von Glitch.”

Vanellope’s mouth dropped open in surprise as Ralph growled, “What are you talking about? If you’re trying to pull something, after all the times I’ve stuck up for you—”

“I’m not,” King Candy said, sounding offended. “Listen. Vanellope here has—what do you like calling it? Your superpower? She can glitch, is what I’m saying. If our scummy virus friend comes after her, she just _zap_ , gets out of his way.”

Begrudgingly, Vanellope said, “You have a point. Just one problem, genius, I don’t know anything about coding.”

Putting a hand to his chest, he said, “I’m so glad you’re _finally_ recognizing that I’m a genius.” When Vanellope rolled her eyes, he added, “You don’t need to know anything about coding. Malcolm’s turned this whole place into a giant open code box. You want to talk about vulnerabilities, oy—well, anyway. You just need to maintain contact between this circuit board and the wall long enough for the command to execute. It’ll take about forty-five seconds.”

When Taffyta couldn’t help snorting in laughter, he added, “Yeah, yeah, Miss My-Game-Was-Made-In-The-90s.”

Vanellope reached out and took it. “Forty-five seconds, huh? I can do that.”

Just then, there was a hiss and the barest movement of displaced air. “I don’t think so,” Malcom’s voice said, just behind Taffyta. Before she could react, he appeared in front of her, moving from one spot to the other without actually covering the distance, no glitching, no floating into place, just a blip from here to there. He grabbed for Vanellope but, with a bored expression on her face, she just glitched out of the way, a blue blur that rematerialized ten feet away.

Malcolm turned to go after her, but Ralph’s fist connected with his face before he could slide through space. Normal physics would have sent him flying, but he held out a hand and came to a halt. Then he snapped his fingers and smiled cruelly. A vacant look came into Ralph’s eyes, and he began swinging his fists wildly. Taffyta and King Candy ducked out of his way before he clocked one of them.

“Ralph!” Taffyta yelled desperately. “It isn’t real!”

Hands clamped around her shoulders and Malcolm’s voice said, right in her ear, “He can’t hear you, Blondie. Now, what should I show _you?_ Maybe I’ll join this one myself—”

King Candy’s scepter crunched into Malcolm’s skull, coming away trailing drops of green blood, and Taffyta fumbled for her gun and aimed it straight at his horrible, sleazy face. “Your choice, Malcolm,” she said, holding the gun steady. She’d shoot him between the eyes, he’d regenerate, and she’d gladly do it all over again. Of course, if he trapped both of them in hallucinations, they could be in real trouble. “You can come after us, or you can stop Vanellope.” His skull was crushed in on one side and blood was oozing out, its slow drip hypnotic. Shards of bone were sticking up. How was he not dead and regenerating?

Baring his teeth at the two of them, he turned and made his way across the code vault. All Taffyta could do was watch as he slid through space, covering more distance than should have been possible. “God, I really hope you’re right that Vanellope can stay out of his way,” she said.

“Me too,” King Candy replied.

Vanellope reached the wall of the code room at that moment. For the first time since Taffyta had met him, Malcolm looked scared. The blood drained from his face and he doubled his efforts to reach her, making a grab for her as she pressed the circuit board into the binary scrolling over the wall. She glitched away and his hands passed straight through her. Somehow, she kept the hand holding the circuit board from glitching, and as she slid along the wall in a zap of binary, it remained pressed into the wall.

“Twenty seconds,” King Candy muttered. Taffyta’s chest was tight and she could barely breathe. If this didn’t work—

Malcolm made another grab for Vanellope, sliding through space himself, but she glitched again, and once again the circuit board stayed solid. The other woman’s arm seemed to be sinking into the wall but it didn’t faze her as she kept dancing out of Malcolm’s way.

“Thirty,” King Candy said, his fingers fidgeting and his eyebrows drawn together in concern.

But there was no concern on Vanellope’s face. She looked gleeful as she glitched one way, then the other, and Malcolm kept chasing futilely after her. The expression on his face was increasingly desperate, then full-blown panicked.

King Candy drew his hands up and curled them into fists nervously in front of his chest. “Forty-five.”

There was a hollow, resonant _boom_ , then everything in the code room began strobing. Something screamed and Taffyta cringed at the inhuman sound of it. Underneath the ear-rending shriek was a mechanical buzz, harsh and grinding, and she looked towards Malcolm. His eyes and mouth were wide open but the sound wasn’t coming from him, it was coming from _everywhere_ , from all around them. The walls of the code room were screaming.

Malcolm’s body arched backwards, his spine cracking into an impossible parabola. Then the walls turned red—bright, _TurboTime_ red—and a face appeared over Malcolm’s for a split second. But Taffyta only needed a fraction of that to recognize it. It was Turbo’s face, the 8-bit, pixellated approximation of it, grinning like a skull.

The buzz and scream rose together in pitch, crescendoing until Taffyta had to clap her hands over her ears, convinced they were about to start bleeding. There was the sound of an implosion, of vacuum crushing in and air thwumping to nothingness, and then—

The code room went dark, except for the glowing green code blobs. Taffyta was shaking, but as she stared at one of the blobs, bobbing sedately in the distance, her chest finally loosened enough to take in a full breath. Then, with a gasp, she said, “Oh my god, _Ralph—_ ”

She whirled around and kicked back to him, hardly able to see in the darkness. Instead of trying to slow, she just bumped into him, grabbing his arm. “Ralph, are you okay? Snap out of it, he’s gone—at least, I think he’s gone—”

“ _Man_ , is that guy ever a piece of work,” Ralph said, sounding woozy.

There was a flash of blue and Vanellope appeared at Ralph side. “ _Excusez moi_ , but I think you mean _was_ a piece of work.” King Candy joined them and Vanellope looked at him. “He’s gone, right, Turbutt?”

King Candy looked at her for a long moment, then looked around the code room. The walls were dead and dark, not a hint of green _or_ red or any binary. Taffyta closed her eyes and felt for the connection to Malcolm that she’d never wanted, the tiny lingering piece of virus or antibody or whatever it had been that threaded the two of them together. That _wrongness_ that she’d always felt, like something in her was still sick.

It was gone. She opened her eyes and smiled. “He’s dead,” she said. “Like, totally dead.”

At that, King Candy grinned at her, and then his eyes moved back to Vanellope. “Hey glitch,” he said. She looked annoyed and opened her mouth to respond, but then he held out a hand. “Nice work.”

There was a long, long moment, silent except for the faint hum of the remaining code in the room. Then, Vanellope snorted and shook his hand. “Thanks, jerk-a-zoid.”

King Candy scoffed, but Taffyta caught a flicker on his face of—well, it definitely wasn’t _fondness_ , or anything approaching affection, but maybe just the absence of outright malice. She bit her lip to keep from laughing, the urge suddenly crazy and overwhelming. When they got home, she was looking forward to taking a long, _long_ nap.

As though he’d just read her mind, Ralph said, “Well, as much as I’m really enjoying the sights down here, not to mention the locals and the wildlife, what do you guys say we head home?”

With an emphatic nod, Taffyta said, “Definitely.”


	17. Chapter 17

When they arrived back in Game Central Station, Taffyta was afraid of what they were going to find. Had more games been unplugged? Was there going to be a hall full of homeless, bitter characters, all blaming her for what Malcolm had done? After all of that, was she going to have to leave Litwak’s anyway, because she’d never be welcome?

But when Ralph squeezed through the door of the broom closet and the rest of them followed him out, blinking in the clean, bright light shining in through Game Central Station’s huge, high windows, it looked like a completely normal day. Characters were wandering around chatting and coming in and out of games. Paperboy was riding his bike on the other side of the hall and the group of _Hero’s Duty_ soldiers were doing their nightly jog. Taffyta almost sobbed in relief, or was it laughter?

“I wonder what time it is,” Ralph said, putting his hands on his hips.

Vanellope pulled her sleeve up and checked her watch. “10:15. Looks like you guys have forty-five minutes to freshen up before the arcade opens.”

They shut the closet door behind them and headed for their games. People were starting to stare, and Deanna hurried up to them. “Did you fix it?” she asked. “Is he gone? We’re not going to be unplugged, are we?”

Ralph gave her a thumbs up. “Nope. I mean, yep, we took care of it. I should add it to my card: Wreck-It Ralph, wrecking and anti-virus.”

Deanna beamed. “My hero!”

A brick red flush spread from Ralph’s neck up to his face and he mumbled a few unintelligible syllables. Vanellope snorted and covered her mouth, and as Deanna hurried off to tell everyone the news, she said, “Oooh, Ralphie, looks like you might have a girlfriend.”

“Yeah yeah, cut it out,” Ralph said, though he was smiling.

They arrived at the _Sugar Rush_ outlet, fielding a few more questions about the success of their mission along the way, and then stopped. Taffyta wasn’t sure what to say to Ralph. When you went through what they’d all just gone through together, what _was_ there to say? So instead, she just hugged him tightly and said, “Thanks. I’m really glad you were there.”

“Ah, you know.” He waved a hand and hugged her back. “Gotta keep the wrecking skills sharp somehow. Nothing like giant bugs and evil viruses, right?” Taffyta giggled and stepped away, and Ralph looked at King Candy. “Hey, Turbo.”

King Candy raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

His expression casual, Ralph asked, “You free on Friday night? I was thinking we could do a poker night. You know, Felix, Q*bert, you, some of the other guys from the old days.”

A smile twitched at King Candy’s mouth. “I’ll pencil you in.” He hesitated. “Er, Ralph.” One of Ralph’s eyebrows went up and he crossed his arms over his chest. King Candy gave him a thumbs up. “What Taffyta said. We couldn’t’ve done it without you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ralph said cheerfully. King Candy laughed.

Looking at Vanellope, Ralph said, “What do you say, kid, want to come hang out by the stump for awhile?”

But Vanellope just stood there, sticking her hands in her hoodie pockets. There was a regretful look on her face. “It’s about time for me to hit the road. I think I’ll just say my good-byes here, I don’t want it to turn into a big thing. You guys tell everyone I’ll see them in a few months.”

Ralph looked crestfallen, but then he smiled. “You got it.”

“Bye, Vanellope,” Taffyta said, lifting her hand in a wave as she turned to go.

“Hey, uh, Taffyta? Can I talk to you for a second?” Vanellope said, sounding uncomfortable. She’d moved on from her hands in her pockets to the trifecta of hands in pockets, tracing imaginary lines on the ground with her foot, and glitching. So whatever she had to say, it was sure to be _really_ fun. Not.

Taffyta glanced at King Candy. He looked tired and the black scab was covering most of his hand now. “You should go home,” she said. “That looks horrible.”

He shrugged and held his hand out in front of him, splaying his fingers. “It does, doesn’t it? Oh well, I’ve gone this long with it eating my skin or whatever’s happening—hoo-hoo, that’s really not funny, is it? It’sth not going to kill me in the next ten minutes. I mean, at least, I don’t _think_ it is.” Nodding towards her shoulder, he added, “You’re not looking much better, you know.”

Pain stabbed at her shoulder, punctuating this point. Honestly, she’d been trying not to look at it, but the burning ache had been edging down her arm and back in the hours since the bug had wounded her. “I guess it won’t kill me, either,” she said.

A grin flashed across his face and he closed his injured hand into a fist. The grin became a wince, but he said, “I’ll wait for you.”

She nodded to him. Then, stifling the uneasy look she knew was on her face, Taffyta followed Vanellope a short distance away. Ralph and King Candy were both staring at them, but something made them swiftly turn around, as though on cue, and Taffyta turned back to Vanellope just in time to see her making a turning motion with her finger.

Taffyta raised her eyebrows, staring at Vanellope, who chewed at her lip in silence for a moment. Then, with a sigh, she said, “Ugh, look. I’m sorry, okay?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Taffyta asked, “You’re sorry?”

Waving a hand, Vanellope said, “Yeah. For everything. For all that stuff I said.” 

Oh boy. She could do what she’d been doing for the past three years, smile and wave and say, _oh, Vanellope, it’s fine. Don’t worry! There’s nothing wrong. We don’t need to talk about it._ That would be easier. Except, look where that had gotten them. She was grateful for what Vanellope had done in the Underworld—they probably wouldn’t have been able to do it without her—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still mad.

So Taffyta’s face remained stony. “Are you serious right now?” When Vanellope’s mouth opened in surprise, Taffyta went on, “You have three years of—of _bullshit_ to apologize for, do you even _get_ that? And you don’t just owe _me_ an apology, it’s _everyone_. Candlehead and Rancis and Minty, and Jubileena and Snowanna, Adorabeezle, Crumbelina, Gloyd… _all_ of us, and all the NPCs. You ditched us, Vanellope, like we never even mattered.”

Vanellope bit her lip. Taffyta’s whole body was thrumming with self-righteous anger and she didn’t care if she’d just pissed Vanellope off. You didn’t do what she’d done and then think you could get off with just ‘sorry for the stuff I said.’ Come _on_. After a second though, Vanellope said, “Yeah. You’re right.”

At that, Taffyta’s anger felt like it hit a brick wall. “I am?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Vanellope jammed her hands deeper into her hoodie pocket and stared at the ground. “I mean, how horrible do you think I am? Of course I know that just blowing all you guys off like that was wrong. But…y’know, I didn’t come back for like, six months, and then it just kind of seemed like…I don’t know, the moment to apologize was kind of gone.”

It was really, _really_ tempting to dismiss this as just another stupid excuse, just Vanellope being Vanellope, dumb and immature and unable to see how her behavior affected other people. Except…Taffyta got it. Hadn’t she thought just days ago about how she should have said something about how Vanellope had made her feel? But it was the same thing—the time felt like it had passed, like the conversation had an expiration date and she’d watched it come and go, so the only option was to hold the grudge and let it fester. And it wasn’t like anyone had tried to clue Vanellope into how they’d felt the first time she’d come back. They’d all acted like everything was fine, like they were just happy to see her and they were all totally over what she’d done. Because they _were_ happy. No one ever bothered to tell her how much it had hurt. How much it continued to hurt.

Taffyta sighed. “We all felt like we never mattered to you.”

“Yeah well, you did,” Vanellope said fiercely. “It wasn’t ever about you guys. I was just…” She stopped, then finally looked up. “I guess that’s just like, who I am, Taff.”

“The grass is always greener on the other side?” Taffyta asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. I mean, sort of. There’s no grass in _Slaughter Race_. Some patchy brown stuff in the boulevard medians sometimes, I guess.”

Despite herself, Taffyta laughed. “Yeah.” She bunched her jacket sleeves into her fists. “I just…it really sucked. What you did.”

Vanellope pressed her lips together, then said, “I’m sorry. I should’ve come back first before I moved to _Slaughter Race_ permanently. I should’ve explained to all of you guys. And…” She sighed. “And I should’ve abdicated or whatever.”

“I don’t think you can abdicate the presidency,” Taffyta pointed out. “I think you just step down.” Then, she sighed, looking around at Game Central Station. Wasn’t this what she’d been waiting to hear for three years? There was something bittersweet about it now, though, and Taffyta suddenly realized that some part of her had been hoping that Vanellope was just going through a phase, that she’d come back to _Sugar Rush_ , that she wouldn’t be bored and unhappy and that their friendship could return to what it had been in the first few years after the game had reset.

Except, well, people changed. Hadn’t Taffyta said that herself? People changed. Things were never going to go back to the way they’d been before.

Finally, she looked back at Vanellope. “Apology accepted, Pres,” she said.

Holding up a hand, Vanellope said, “Nah, consider me _former_ president von Schweetz.”

Taffyta let her arms fall to her sides. “You still get to keep the title, I think.”

“Really? Cool.”

“Yeah.”

There was a long silence, and then Taffyta said, “I’m sorry for everything I said, too. It wasn’t like, super constructive.” When Vanellope raised her eyebrows, Taffyta added, “That was Zombie’s topic for discussion in Bad Anon when we went the other day. ‘Arguing constructively.’” Vanellope guffawed at Taffyta’s exaggerated air quotes. “Guess I still need to work on the whole being mean thing.”

“So you’re gonna keep going to Bad Anon?” Vanellope asked, a wicked glint of amusement in her eyes.

With a shrug, Taffyta said, “I think it’s probably good for King Candy. Even if he’ll never admit it.”

Vanellope snorted. She picked at one of the holes on her tights. Then she adjusted one of the skull clips in her hair. Finally, she said, “You’re really into him, aren’t you?” When Taffyta’s face flushed, Vanellope shook her head. “I don’t get it. But—I shouldn’t have said what I did. About you and Turbutt, and how you’re like, betraying me by liking him, or whatever.”

Taffyta blinked. Then, with a deep breath, she said, “It’s okay.”

“Yeah, well, I got to thinking about what you said.” Vanellope hesitated, then shrugged. “About people being allowed to change. You were right. _I_ changed, didn’t I? This place, and _Sugar Rush_ , it was enough for me at first.”

“Yeah, well, you always _did_ dream big,” Taffyta said with a small smile.

Returning the smile, Vanellope said, “So the point is, why should I be surprised when other people change? I mean, you’re right about him, as gross as it is to admit it. He _has_ changed, for the better I guess, even though that wouldn’t have taken much. And don’t get me wrong, I still find it _super_ vomit-inducing that you have the hots for him.”

Taffyta turned bright red. “Er, I wouldn’t…wouldn’t put it exactly that way…”

“Oh come _on_ , Taff.” Vanellope rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I think the thing that really bugged me was that _you_ changed. When I left we were all just kids, but now we’re all grown up, and I don’t know. I guess I just expected all of you to care about the same stuff that we did before, even though you don’t turn into a twenty-five year old and still think like you’re nine.” Tugging at one of the strings of her hoodie, she said, “I guess I just…don’t get it. All that romantic stuff, I mean. Rancis and Minty, Jubileena and Snowanna, and Swizz and whatever her name is—”

“We usually just call her Girl of the Month,” Taffyta volunteered.

That made Vanellope laugh, but she sobered quickly. “It’s just weird to come back and feel like all your friends are moving on without you.”

Laughing in disbelief, Taffyta said, “Vanellope, you _literally_ moved on without all of us!”

“I know, I know! I’m not saying it makes any sense.” Scuffing her foot on the ground, Vanellope said, “So…yeah. That’s pretty much what I wanted to say. Are we still friends?”

Taffyta made an exasperated noise. “Don’t be stupid. Of course we are.” A day ago, she’d been wondering the exact same thing herself, but now that seemed…well, stupid. Her and Vanellope might have been really different people—like really, _really_ different—but their friendship had been strong enough to withstand those differences before. Losing that friendship, or thinking she’d lost it, as time and bitterness and distance had chipped away at it, had been a weight that she’d been carrying around. Suddenly, it seemed to drop away. “Of course we are,” she repeated. “We’ll always be friends.”

Vanellope grinned at her and gave her a thumbs up. Then, she said, “Pfft, what am I doing?” and pulled Taffyta into a hug. Taffyta hugged her back tightly.

When they separated, Taffyta smiled and said, “Hey, maybe I actually _will_ come visit you in _Slaughter Race_.”

Putting her hands on her hips, Vanellope asked, “Does that mean I have to extend the invitation to your boyfriend? Or—oh god, barf, what if you and King Cavity get married or something, then I can’t even make you sleep in separate rooms.”

A flush crept up Taffyta’s face again. “Yeah, don’t worry about that. I don’t think it’s going to happen. He doesn’t think of me like that. I’m like…a little sister to him, or something."

Vanellope rolled her eyes. “Okay, Taffyta, sure. Whatever you say.”

“What?” Taffyta glanced back over her shoulder at King Candy, who was laughing about something with Ralph. “What do you mean? Why are you looking at me like that? Oh my _god_ , Vanellope, seriously, you’re acting like I’m the only person not in on the joke or something—”

Laughing, Vanellope said, “Okay, okay, cool it, Taff! Man, if love turns you this neurotic, then I _definitely_ am fine without it.”

Taffyta’s face turned even redder, but she didn’t deny the ‘love’ part. Because she was. She was 100%, absolutely, completely, head over heels in love with King Candy. Turbo. This man that had been in her life forever who had done nothing and everything to deserve it, who filled every single one of her days. He felt like home to her and she couldn’t imagine not hearing his laugh or teaming up with him during a race. She couldn’t imagine not being the one to _make_ him laugh, not being the person who he shared a sly glance with after making some particularly witty, or maybe just smart-ass, remark. There was no one else for her. There never would be. Nothing was ever going to change that. 

Vanellope snorted. “Just don’t let him regress, okay? He’s definitely still a work in progress.” When Taffyta opened her mouth to repeat that his feelings for her were strictly platonic, Vanellope held up a hand, like she already knew what she was going to say. “Hey, I may not get it, but I see how he looks at you. Maybe you’re not as clued into what’s going on as you think you are.”

At this, Taffyta just blinked, opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it. Vanellope saluted. “See ya, Taff.” She glitched over to Ralph and said, “Walk me to the router, Stinkbrain?”

“Sounds good, Baroness Boogerface.”

Vanellope waved one more time to Taffyta and then her and Ralph headed into the Wi-Fi outlet. Taffyta didn’t move, still thinking about what Vanellope had said. _Was_ she missing something right under her nose?

“So,” King Candy said, his hands clasped behind his back as he approached her. “You two are okay now?”

Taffyta looked at him. “What made you think we weren’t?”

“Hoo-hoo! My dear.” But he stopped and looked at her, a smile twitching at his mouth. “I just know you. I can tell when something’s wrong.”

_Maybe you’re not as clued into what’s going on as you think you are._

“But listen,” King Candy went on, oblivious to the way she was staring at him. “I’m glad it’sth all worked out now. It’d probably be good for you to be friends with the glitch again. Just—leave me out of it, okay?”

This snapped her out of it. With a laugh, she said, “Deal.”

Their karts were still inside _Sugar Rush’s_ outlet and Taffyta slid into Pink Lightning’s seat with a grateful sigh. The pain in her shoulder had receded while she’d talked to Vanellope, but it was back now. It _hurt._ And so did her leg where the bug’s acid had splattered on her. Only a few minutes until all of their injuries were healed with their game’s regenerative powers. Taffyta didn’t think she’d ever appreciated that aspect of regeneration so much, but then again, she wasn’t in the habit of getting hurt outside her game. When her shoulder stopped hurting, it was going to feel _great_.

King Candy looked at her and she gave him a thumbs up, and the two of them started their karts and headed home.


	18. Chapter 18

Word of their success had beaten them back to _Sugar Rush,_ and they only got as far as Chocolate Town Square before NPCs in the road became too much of a hazard to keep driving. They stopped and got out of their karts and out of nowhere, Candlehead barreled into Taffyta. “You’re safe! And you did it! I knew you would!”

Taffyta hugged her back. “I’m glad someone thought so.” At that, King Candy caught her eye and winked at her.

NPCs closed in around them, cheering and demanding to be told everything. Her heart soared. But then, as she started to bask in the attention, it just as abruptly crashed. Suddenly, she didn’t want any of it. She didn’t want to be the center of attention, she didn’t want everyone fawning over her. She was tired and she’d almost died how many times in the past twenty-four hours? There was only one thing she wanted, and despite what Vanellope said, she didn’t see any way that she was going to get it.

But King Candy hadn’t gotten to be the center of attention for practically a decade. If one of them was going to reap the rewards of what they’d just pulled off, she was happy for it to be him.

So she grabbed him by the arm and pushed him forward. “Hey! Guys, listen—I couldn’t have done any of it without King Candy.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him look at her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. There was usually nothing she liked more in the world than everyone cheering her name and telling her how great she was. This was out of character and she didn’t want him somehow guessing why. Like he’d just told her, he knew her and could tell when something was wrong. Anyway, she wanted to do this for him. “He’s the one you should be cheering for,” she added.

The response was immediate. NPCs mobbed him and so did several of the racers, Candlehead among them. Taffyta backed out of the crowd and stood at the edge of it, smiling. King Candy was beaming from the attention. No one had acted this happy to see him for nine years. He didn’t even have fans in-game anymore and no one else’s had been willing to cheer for him. Taffyta knew; she’d asked. Cajoled. Begged, as much as it had hurt her pride. None of it had done any good.

It made her happy to see him so happy. Tomorrow, things would go back to the way they’d been for nine years, but for today, he was a hero.

“Did you really just give up a chance to be in the limelight?” Rancis asked.

Taffyta glanced at him. His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyebrows were raised. “Guess I did,” she drawled.

Rolling his eyes, Rancis said, “Hey Taff, I’m saying this as a friend, okay? You’re being really stupid.”

She jammed her hands on her hips. “Excuse me?”

Rancis gestured. “Just tell him how you feel about him and stop waiting around for him to do something about it.”

“I—” Taffyta looked away, hoping the expression on her face was unconcerned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

If someone could roll their eyes harder, Rancis was definitely doing it now. “C’mon. It’s _really_ obvious how you feel about him. I don’t know why you’re pretending.”

There was a lightness to King Candy’s face that she hadn’t seen in years and years and Taffyta felt a stupid smile spreading across her own.

“Exhibit A,” Rancis said.

Taffyta hugged her arms around herself and turned to him. “Because I don’t want to mess anything up. We’re like…I don’t know.”

“Something special?” Rancis supplied.

She glanced at King Candy again, her sternum aching with longing. “Yeah.”

“Hey.” He punched her shoulder lightly. “I get it. It’s hard to change the status quo or whatever. Right? But Taff, you gotta take a chance sometime. Like in a race. You don’t win without taking risks.”

Blinking and looking at him, Taffyta said, “That’s like…shockingly insightful, Rancis.” When he scoffed, she sighed and let her arms fall to her sides. “You really think I should say something?”

“Better than this whole unrequited-love thing that you have going on,” Rancis said cheerfully. He elbowed her and added, “I mean, do what you want, but I’m just saying, you and him are kind of obvious.” With that, he turned and walked away to join the crowd, smirking.

Taffyta crossed her arms over her chest and looked towards King Candy again, but she couldn’t see him through the crowd of NPCs. Maybe Rancis was right. But maybe he wasn’t. Anyway, she wasn’t going to interrupt this now. Let him have some adoring fans for once.

One of her fans turned to her and tried to pull her into the spotlight again, but Taffyta shook her arm free and just held a hand up, demurring. They’d probably keep trying to cheer for her if she stuck around, so maybe the best thing to do was leave.

Anyway, she had a lot to think about. They’d both almost died. In the face of that, why was she so afraid to tell him how she felt? Was possible rejection really more scary than _dying?_ Except, of course, it wasn’t just the rejection. It was the fact that if she told him she was in love with him, and he wasn’t in love with her, nothing would ever be the same between them again. Sure, they were a team now, but if she spilled her heart out to him and he didn’t feel the same way? Kiss the team good-bye.

She went home but that didn’t feel right either, so she took her kart and drove. And when she drove aimlessly in _Sugar Rush_ , especially when she had King Candy on the brain, she had a tendency to end up in the same place every time.

When she reached the overlook in the Frosty Mountains, she pulled her helmet off and set it on the hood of her kart, then climbed out and walked to the edge of the cliff. _Sugar Rush_ was as beautiful as always, sparkling and green under the summer sun, the turquoise sea glinting all around and each track like a ribbon of smooth taffy. She couldn’t imagine losing it. She couldn’t imagine leaving it. There was nowhere else in the world she wanted to live, and there was only one person in the world that she wanted to share all of it with.

Making a face, she pushed her fingers through her hair, feeling it snarl around her knuckles. She needed to say something. But she had to plan it out. She wasn’t just going to like, wing it. Not something this important.

The faint sound of an engine on the cold mountain wind drifted across her hearing. Was that—? She pulled her fingers out of her hair and listened, then dropped her arms to her sides. Of course it was.

The Royal Racer appeared and skidded to a stop next to Pink Lightning in a swirl of snow. King Candy stepped out, looking at her through his goggles. “Oh, Taffyta, you’re here, good—glad I found you—but, well, why? I mean, that is, you left, and you didn’t say anything…”

“I figured you’d want to hang around back there. All the adulation and accolades?” Taffyta smiled. Oh pixy sticks, her hair probably looked _horrible._ Quickly smoothing it and hoping he hadn’t noticed anything, she added, “It’s been awhile since you had that.”

He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead and crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I—I mean, yes that’sth true, but…” He looked, just for a second, at a loss for words. “It’s just, I looked around suddenly, back there, and, er, well…”

This was a lot of stuttering, even for him. What was going on? Was he nervous about something? “Well?” she prompted.

He pulled his goggles off and looked at them, then fogged his breath on one lens and rubbed his sleeve on it. When he remained silent, Taffyta wondered if she was going to have to remind him again that he’d said anything. But then, he looked up at her and said, “You weren’t there. And I just…well…um. You weren’t there.”

Something fizzy opened up in her stomach and flooded her veins. “Does that matter?” she asked, hoping her voice came out as something approaching normal.

“Well, if you want to know the truth, that is, it…” King Candy stopped and took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

And then he stopped, and the snow blew around them while the wind whistling through the peaks high above filled the silence. A snowflake landed on Taffyta’s cheek and melted, and she brushed the drop of icy water away with her hand. King Candy was staring at her, and she didn’t know if she should wait for him to speak or risk shattering this delicate moment. It felt like possibilities were stretching out in every direction, and she didn’t want to confine them to one road. Anything could happen right now. It was the moment before possibly the beginning—or the end—of everything.

It was terrifying.

He took a step forward. Then another. He was close enough that either of them could reach out and touch the other, but neither of them did. “Taff, I…” he began, then shook his head. “I’m not doing this very well, am I?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” she said honestly.

His fingers fidgeted and he dropped his arms to his sides. “You’re an incredible woman,” he said.

The fizzy feeling in her veins got warm and even more bubbly. “I am?”

“Yesth. Of course you are. You know you—” He cut himself off and cleared his throat, still looking like words were failing him. “And you know, at first it was hard for me to see you as anything but that nine-year-old girl, and I think maybe I—well, it took me sort of by surprise, when it hit me that you’re…well, _not_. That girl anymore, that is. And I mean, not that it hit me like—well I mean I _knew,_ obviously, that you’re an adult, and you have been for yearsth, but I just didn’t…” He stopped and held his hands out, like he had to physically arrest this flood of words. Then he began again, “You’re, um. Well.” He swallowed. “You’re a gorgeous, smart, funny woman, who’s saved my sorry life more timesth than I can count—”

“It’s only been like three or four,” she said, then immediately felt like kicking herself. _He just called you GORGEOUS, SMART AND FUNNY, stupid!_ And she interrupted him with _that_?

That startled a surprised laugh out of him. “I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit, my dear. Anyway, Taff…I’ve said it before. I know I haven’t done anything to deserve having a friend like you.”

The fizzy feeling in her veins went flat instantly. Friend. _Friend_. He still thought of her as just a friend.

“So,” he said, but it came out sounding oddly strangled. He cleared his throat, and tried again, “ _So_ , if I don’t even deserve that, I know I don’t deserve anything more. But I can’t—I mean, that is, I can’t stop thinking, you know, if I wasn’t glitchy, and if I hadn’t taken over your game and tried to delete your princessth, and if I wasn’t—well, _old_ , I suppose, even though that was more a matter of appearance and choice, I mean, you know, I’m not really that much older than you in a programming sense, ten years really, it’s not much when you think about it—”

The way she was staring at him made him stop. “You don’t have to stay if this is too much for you,” he said, with an attempt at a smile.

Her heart kicked. “You’ve never been too much for me,” she said. “Even when you should have been.”

His fingers curled at his sides. “I suppose the main thing, then, is that I lied to you. For—well, too long. Yearsth. And Taff, I haven’t lied to you in a long time, but I can’t change that I spent fifteen years doing it. So I understand if…”

Something in her snapped. She reached out and grabbed his hand, wrapping her fingers around his tightly. _Stop waiting around for him to do something about it._ “Spit it _out_ , King Candy,” she said, feeling wildness leap within her chest. “When has _any_ of that mattered? You _know_ it never has. I would—I would do anything for you, or—or _go_ anywhere. Like, to hell and back kind of anywhere. You’re like, kind of everything to me.” Then, mortified by this catastrophic lapse in judgement, she clamped her lips shut, staring at him with wide eyes. So much for planning things out.

The rise and fall of his chest seemed heavier than normal, and there was a glitchy red frisson at his fingertips. “Well,” he said. “I think that makes this a little easier. Taffyta, the thing is—” He swallowed. “The thing is, I love you.”

The whole world seemed to go still around them as they stood there. The gusting wind in the peaks above, the whisper of snowflakes landing, the hiss of snow blowing over the road behind them, all of it just stopped. Or maybe the ringing in Taffyta’s ears was drowning it out.

“You…you do?” she said, her voice coming out as a strangled squeak.

He nodded, gripping her hand. “I, well, I have for awhile, and I just…I didn’t know how to tell you, and that’sth…okay, isn’t it?” Her stillness seemed to be unnerving him., but she couldn’t make herself move or say the _one_ thing that she’d been wanting to say for…well, forever. Now that the unbelievable was happening, all she could do was stand there like an idiot.

His fingers slackened, and that finally snapped her out of her paralysis. “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I mean, oh my god, I’m so—that is, I love you too, I—”

Then she didn’t even think, she just acted, because there was nothing else she could do in that moment. With an inarticulate noise, she closed the small distance between them and kissed him.

And he kissed her back. _He kissed her back._ Like, she’d been expecting him to, but the fact of it, the way he put his arms around her and pulled her to him, the warmth of his body and the way there wasn’t a single inch of space between them, was so much _more_ than she’d imagined it. She’d imagined it so many times, but the reality was infinitely better.

He glitched and she did too, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world, and even though she knew she was kissing Turbo instead of King Candy, he felt exactly the same in her arms.

Eventually, he pulled back, his yellow eyes a bit dazed, before he glitched to King Candy. “So,” he said, and then laughed effusively. Taffyta grinned, grabbed his face in her hands, and kissed him again. Putting a hand to her face and brushing his fingers down her jawline, he repeated more softly, “So.”

Her smile felt like it was going to split her face in half. “So this is like, a thing now,” she supplied. “You and me.”

Taking her hand again, he chuckled and said, “It might just be the _best_ thing. Maybe ever. For me, I mean, not to be presumptuous—”

She kissed him again, more gently. “Me too,” she said. For a second, she thought about saying something else, but she didn’t need to, did she? They were there, holding onto each other, and there were a million things to say but none of them needed to be said now. They had the rest of forever for that.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and said, “Want to go home?”

He held her tightly, then leaned back and put his hands on her shoulders, staring at her with a look of such goofy happiness on his face that it was everything she could do not to kiss him one more time. “You read my mind,” he said, squeezing her shoulders. Then, he raised an eyebrow. “Want to race there?”

He didn’t even need to ask. That was the thing about them, wasn’t it? For years now, they’d understood each other implicitly. In some ways, they always had. As she held his eyes, Taffyta grinned. Maybe they lived in a world where things were supposed to be wrong. He was a game-jumper, she was a bully who’d infected her own game. _Sugar Rush_ was permanently down one racer and out a princess/president. But none of that mattered.

For the first time, everything was right.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who’s stuck with this series to the end! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did (or didn’t!), it would truly mean the world to me if you dropped me a review.
> 
> Taffyta’s adventures aren’t over, of course. Stay tuned for future hijinks…
> 
> And lastly, this fic has a playlist!
> 
> 1\. “Quarter Past Midnight” - Bastille
> 
> 2\. “Midnight City” - M83
> 
> 3\. “The Gathering” - Michael Giacchino
> 
> 4\. “22” - Taylor Swift
> 
> 5\. “False Start” - SPC ECO
> 
> 6\. “Back to the Start” - Mr. Little Jeans
> 
> 7\. “Carved Intentions” - Lavender
> 
> 8\. “Ghost Town” - Shiny Toy Guns
> 
> 9\. “Listen Don’t Speak” - Heathers
> 
> 10\. “Rim Shak” - Letters to Cleo
> 
> 11\. “We Remain” - Christina Aguilera
> 
> 12\. “The Wolf” - Fever Ray
> 
> 13\. “Find Me (feat. Birdy) (Acoustic) - Sigma
> 
> 14\. “With Strawberries Like Dead Men” - Solkyri


End file.
